Privilege escalation can occur in the SUSE useradd.c code in useradd, as distributed in the SUSE shadow package through 4.2.1-27.9.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (SLE-12) and through 4.5-5.39 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 (SLE-15). Non-existing intermediate directories are created with mode 0777 during user creation. Given that they are world-writable, local attackers might use this for privilege escalation and other unspecified attacks. NOTE: this would affect non-SUSE users who took useradd.c code from a 2014-04-02 upstream pull request; however, no non-SUSE distribution is known to be affected.

The Debian shadow package before 1:4.5-1 for Shadow incorrectly lists pts/0 and pts/1 as physical terminals in /etc/securetty. This allows local users to login as password-less users even if they are connected by non-physical means such as SSH (hence bypassing PAM's nulloksecure configuration). This notably affects environments such as virtual machines automatically generated with a default blank root password, allowing all local users to escalate privileges.

/bin/login in shadow 4.0.18.1 in Debian GNU/Linux, and probably other Linux distributions, allows local users in the utmp group to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a temporary file referenced in a line (aka utline) field in a utmp entry.

Multiple CRLF injection vulnerabilities in (1) chfn and (2) chsh in shadow 1:4.1.4 allow local users to add new users or groups to /etc/passwd via the GECOS field.

The Debian installer for the (1) shadow 4.0.14 and (2) base-config 2.53.10 packages includes sensitive information in world-readable log files, including preseeded passwords and pppoeconf passwords, which might allow local users to gain privileges.