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.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-6018 is rated High Exploit Risk (70.7/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.30%). Core evidence: 3 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.19% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
| EDB-ID | Source | Kind | Published | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52386 | exploit_db | edb | 2025-07-28 | Exploit-DB ↗ |
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ | |
| — | nvd_ref | exploit_tag | Exploit-DB ↗ |
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 | 0.11% | 1.30% | +1.19% |
| 2 | 2025-11-21 | 0.34% | 0.11% | -0.23% |
| 3 | 2025-11-18 | — | 0.34% | — |
Full EPSS history (7 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.8 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
1.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
unimportant | CVE-2025-6018 unimportant 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-2025-6018 |
redhat
|
high | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-6018 |
suse
|
high | CVE-2025-6018 severity important: SUSE including 413 source package names (0.0.17-1.1:pam-1.3.0-150000.6.83.1, 0.23.1-11.3:pam-1.3.0-150000.6.83.1, …), 1352 product×package rows across 384 product lines (Container bci/kiwi, Container bci/spack, … (384 product lines)): Fixed 1122, Known Affected 221, Known Not Affected 9. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-6018/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2025-6018 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (pam), 9 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 8, needs-triage 1. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-6018 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| suse | pam-config | 1.1.8-24.71.1 | cpe:2.3:a:suse:pam-config:1.1.8-24.71.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-6018 | Third Party Advisory |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2372693 | Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory |
| https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1243226 | Exploit Third Party Advisory |
| https://cdn2.qualys.com/2025/06/17/suse15-pam-udisks-lpe.txt | Exploit Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory |
| http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/08/28/4 |