CVE-2026-47270

pam_usb provides hardware authentication for Linux using ordinary removable media. Prior to 0.9.0, pam_usb is a PAM module loaded into the host process (sudo, login, GDM, GNOME Shell). Display managers such as GDM run multiple concurrent authentication threads. Three functions used by the deny_remote feature called the non-reentrant strtok(), which stores state in a single global pointer. If two authentications race, one thread's strtok() call can overwrite the other's in-progress tokenisation pointer, causing incorrect parsing of the tmux session data or the /proc environ scan that backs the remote-session detection logic. Additionally, pusb_tmux_get_client_tty() passed the raw pointer returned by getenv(TMUX) directly to strtok(). getenv() returns a pointer into the live process environment block; strtok() inserts NUL bytes into that block, permanently corrupting the TMUX variable for subsequent code running in the same process. In long-lived display managers this affects all future authentications in that process. The combined effect can cause deny_remote=true to return an incorrect decision for a remote session, or an incorrect decision for a local session, depending on thread interleaving. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.9.0.

• CWE-362

• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/commit/94f1640a61d49dfaf38e782680a52f01d5bf8b51
• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/commit/d003e551b794a9e3774ff4720830fb7aadaa48bd
• https://github.com/mcdope/pam_usb/security/advisories/GHSA-j3xw-vc43-x7jg

Published

May 27, 2026

Last Modified

Jun 17, 2026

Status

Deferred