CVE-2005-2977

The SELinux version of PAM before 0.78 r3 allows local users to perform brute force password guessing attacks via unix_chkpwd, which does not log failed guesses or delay its responses.

Published: 2005-11-01 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2005-2977 is rated Low Risk (20.6/100): CVSS Low severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.43%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2005-2977

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.08% 0.43% +0.35%
2 2025-03-17 0.04% 0.08% +0.04%
3 2023-03-07 0.04%

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2005-2977

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2005-2977

OS Trackers for CVE-2005-2977

vendor priority summary link
debian low CVE-2005-2977 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (pam), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2005-2977
gentoo normal CVE-2005-2977: 1 GLSA(s) (200510-22), 1 atom(s) (sys-libs/pam); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2005-2977
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-2977
ubuntu medium CVE-2005-2977 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (pam), 4 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): not-affected 3, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2005-2977

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2005-2977

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
pam pam <= 0.80 cpe:2.3:a:pam:pam:*:*:selinux:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2005-2977

cvelogic Threat Intelligence