CVE-2026-44713

HIGH

pam_usb: Command injection via $TMUX environment variable leads to RCE as root

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Description

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.8.7, src/tmux.c reads the user's $TMUX environment variable, splits it on commas, and interpolates the socket-path component directly into a shell command passed to popen(). Because the value is placed inside double-quotes without sanitisation, any value containing " terminates the quoted string and injects arbitrary shell syntax. popen() runs as root inside the PAM stack. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.8.7.

References (1)

Core 1
Core References

Scores

CVSS v3 8.8
EPSS 0.0016
EPSS Percentile 5.3%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-116 CWE-78
Status published
Products (1)
mcdope/pam_usb < 0.8.7
Published May 27, 2026
Tracked Since May 28, 2026