CVE-2025-24032 - CVE House
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Status published Critical CVE-2025-24032

PAM-PKCS#11 vulnerable to authentication bypass with default value for `cert_policy` (`none`)

Vulnerability Description

PAM-PKCS#11 is a Linux-PAM login module that allows a X.509 certificate based user login. Prior to version 0.6.13, if cert_policy is set to none (the default value), then pam_pkcs11 will only check if the user is capable of logging into the token. An attacker may create a different token with the user's public data (e.g. the user's certificate) and a PIN known to the attacker. If no signature with the private key is required, then the attacker may now login as user with that created token. The default to *not* check the private key's signature has been changed with commit commi6638576892b59a99389043c90a1e7dd4d783b921, so that all versions starting with pam_pkcs11-0.6.0 should be affected. As a workaround, in `pam_pkcs11.conf`, set at least `cert_policy = signature;`.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

No credits recorded in the NVD database.

Affected Vendor

Affected Software

pam_pkcs11
Vulnerable Versions:
< 0.6.13

Timeline

Official Publish: February 10th, 2025
Last Modified: May 21st, 2025
Added to House: July 22nd, 2026

CVSS Vectors

Weaknesses (CWE)