Linux-pam directory Traversal
CVE: CVE-2025-6020
Component: linux-pam
CWE: CWE-22
Severity: Important
CVSS v3: 7.9/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Release date: 2025-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

A flaw was found in linux-pam. The module pam_namespace may use access user-controlled paths without proper protection, allowing local users to elevate their privileges to root via multiple symlink attacks and race conditions.

Statement: This vulnerability in pam_namespace marked as Important rather than Moderate due to its direct impact on privilege boundaries and the ease of exploitation in common configurations. By leveraging symlink attacks or race conditions in polyinstantiated directories under their control, unprivileged local users can escalate to root, compromising the entire system. Since pam_namespace is often used in multi-user environments (e.g., shared systems, terminal servers, containers), a misconfigured or partially protected setup becomes a single point of failure. The attack does not require special capabilities or kernel-level exploits—just timing and control over certain paths—making it both reliable and low-barrier. Moreover, privilege escalation flaws like this can be chained with other vulnerabilities to persist or evade detection, further amplifying the risk.

Remediation:
The RHEL-8 based Middleware Containers container images provided by this update can be downloaded from the Red Hat Container Registry at registry.access.redhat.com. Installation instructions for your platform are available at Red Hat Container Catalog (see References).

Dockerfiles and scripts should be amended either to refer to this new image specifically, or to the latest image generally.
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258
The Red Hat Web Terminal 1.11 on RHEL 9 container images provided by this update
can be downloaded from the Red Hat Container Registry at
registry.access.redhat.com. Installation instructions for your platform are
available at Red Hat Container Catalog (see References).

Dockerfiles and scripts should be amended either to refer to this new image
specifically, or to the latest image generally.
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your
system have been applied. For details on how to apply this update, refer to:
  
https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/updating/updating_a_cluster/updating-cluster-cli.html
The containers required to run Discovery can be installed through discovery-installer
RPM. See the official documentation for more details.
The containers required to run Discovery can be installed through discovery-installer RPM. See the official documentation for more details.
The Insights proxy container image provided here is downloaded by the Red Hat
Insights proxy product RPM.

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to
your system have been applied.
For details on how to apply this update, refer to:
https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/openshift_container_platform/latest/html/operators/administrator-tasks#olm-upgrading-operators
For details on how to apply this update, refer to:
https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/openshift_container_platform/latest/html/operators/administrator-tasks#olm-upgrading-operators
A new release of Red Hat OpenShift sandboxed containers.
Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

The steps to apply the upgraded images are different depending on the installation plan approval policy you used
when installing the cert-manager Operator for Red Hat OpenShift.

- If the approval policy is set to `Automatic`, then the Operator will be upgraded automatically when there is a
new version of the Operator. No further action is required to upgrade. This is the default setting.

- If you changed the approval policy to `Manual`, then you must manually approve the upgrade to the Operator.

See https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/security/cert_manager_operator/index.html for additional
information.
Disable the `pam_namespace` module if it is not essential for your environment, or carefully review and configure it to avoid operating on any directories or paths that can be influenced or controlled by unprivileged users, such as user home directories or world-writable locations like `/tmp`.