Auth bypass in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

CVE-2025-6018

A Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) vulnerability has been discovered in pam-config within Linux Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM). This flaw allows an unprivileged local attacker (for example, a user logged in via SSH) to obtain the elevated privileges normally reserved for a physically present, "allow_active" user. The highest risk is that the attacker can then perform all allow_active yes Polkit actions, which are typically restricted to console users, potentially gaining unauthorized control over system configurations, services, or other sensitive operations.

Vulnerability class: Broken Access Control

EPSS: 0.010 (59.1th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.