CVE-2026-104035
Description
A flaw was found in SSSD. An issue in the Kerberos Credential Manager (KCM) responder allows a local user to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by maintaining a persistent connection and repeatedly storing and destroying credentials. Because the service fails to release cached objects from memory when credentials are removed, memory consumption grows continuously, ultimately exhausting available memory and rendering the service unresponsive.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact because exploitation is confined to a local denial-of-service condition affecting the SSSD Kerberos Credential Manager (KCM) responder without impacting data confidentiality, integrity, or elevating privileges. A local, authenticated user with access to the KCM UNIX socket can trigger unbounded memory accumulation within the responder daemon by maintaining a persistent connection while cycling credential operations. The blast radius is limited to the availability of the KCM responder process, and standard system operations or other SSSD services remain functional.
Mitigation
This issue can only be exploited when the SSSD KCM responder is enabled and reachable by a local user, so mitigation focuses on limiting that exposure. On systems that do not require KCM credential caching, disable the KCM responder by stopping and masking the sssd-kcm socket and service:
# systemctl stop sssd-kcm.socket sssd-kcm.service
# systemctl mask sssd-kcm.socket sssd-kcm.service
Before disabling KCM, ensure an alternative Kerberos credential cache type (for example FILE: or KEYRING:) is configured in /etc/krb5.conf, because clients or system configurations that default to KCM: credential caches would otherwise lose Kerberos ticket management. On systems where KCM is required, restrict access to the KCM UNIX socket (/var/run/.heim_org.h5l.kcm-socket) to trusted local users where deployment policy permits. If abnormal memory growth is observed, closing the abusive client connection or restarting the sssd-kcm responder reclaims the retained connection-scoped memory; these are operational workarounds rather than a fix, and no released package fix is currently established.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | N/A | 5.5 |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | Local |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | Low |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (Other); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
An attacker that can influence the allocation of resources that are not properly released could deplete the available resource pool and prevent all other processes from accessing the same type of resource. Frequently-affected resources include memory, CPU, disk space, power or battery, etc.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Found by AISLE in partnership with Red Hat.
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