pam: privilege escalation

It was discovered that the pam_namespace module executed the external script namespace.init with an unchanged environment inherited from an application calling PAM. In cases where such an environment was untrusted (for example, when pam_namespace was configured for setuid applications such as su or sudo), a local, unprivileged user could possibly use this flaw to escalate their privileges. (CVE-2010-3853)

It was discovered that the pam_mail module used root privileges while accessing users' files. In certain configurations, a local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to obtain limited information about files or directories that they do not have access to. (CVE-2010-3435)

It was discovered that the pam_xauth module did not verify the return values of the setuid() and setgid() system calls. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to execute the xauth command with root privileges and make it read an arbitrary input file. (CVE-2010-3316)