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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2015-9542 json

add_password in pam_radius_auth.c in pam_radius 1.4.0 does not correctly check the length of the input password, and is vulnerable to a sta…

published 2020-02-24 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2015-9382

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.5%
EPSS 3.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 89%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

add_password in pam_radius_auth.c in pam_radius 1.4.0 does not correctly check the length of the input password, and is vulnerable to a stack-based buffer overflow during memcpy(). An attacker could send a crafted password to an application (loading the pam_radius library) and crash it. Arbitrary code execution might be possible, depending on the application, C library, compiler, and other factors.

Patch / fix

  • libpam-radius-auth Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.4.0-3

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2015-9542

  • libpam-radius-auth Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1.3.17-0ubuntu4.1
  • libpam-radius-auth Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1.3.17-0ubuntu5.18.04.1
  • libpam-radius-auth Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 1.3.17-0ubuntu4+esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2015-9542

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • pam_radius SLES for SAP 15 SP1, SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS +12 more 1.4.0-3.3.1
  • pam_radius SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES for SAP 12 SP4, SLES for SAP 12 SP3 +14 more 1.3.16-239.4.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:1896-1SUSE-SU-2020:1117-1

  • pam_radius openSUSE Leap 15.3 1.4.0-3.3.1
  • pam_radius openSUSE Leap 15.2 1.4.0-lp152.4.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2021:1896-1openSUSE-SU-2021:0870-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2015-9542 updated cvss 7.5

pam_radius: buffer overflow in password field

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

3.47% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 89% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.