The PAM implementation in /bin/login of the util-linux package before 2.11 causes a password entry to be rewritten across multiple PAM calls, which could provide the credentials of one user to a different user, when used in certain PAM modules such as pam_limits.

vipw in the util-linux package before 2.10 causes /etc/shadow to be world-readable in some cases, which would make it easier for local users to perform brute force password guessing.

A patch for mcookie in the util-linux package for Mandrake Linux 8.2 and 9.0 uses /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random, which causes mcookie to use an entropy source that is more predictable than expected, which may make it easier for certain types of attacks to succeed.

man before 1.5l allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via a malformed man file with improper quotes, which causes the my_xsprintf function to return a string with the value "unsafe," which is then executed as a program via a system call if it is in the search path of the user who runs man.

Multiple buffer overflows in man-db 2.4.1 and earlier, when installed setuid, allow local users to gain privileges via (1) MANDATORY_MANPATH, MANPATH_MAP, and MANDB_MAP arguments to add_to_dirlist in manp.c, (2) a long pathname to ult_src in ult_src.c, (3) a long .so argument to test_for_include in ult_src.c, (4) a long MANPATH environment variable, or (5) a long PATH environment variable.

man-db 2.3.12 and 2.3.18 to 2.4.1 uses certain user-controlled DEFINE directives from the ~/.manpath file, even when running setuid, which could allow local users to gain privileges.

The login program in util-linux 2.11 and earlier uses a pointer after it has been freed and reallocated, which could cause login to leak sensitive data.

umount in util-linux 2.8 to 2.12q, 2.13-pre1, and 2.13-pre2, and other packages such as loop-aes-utils, allows local users with unmount permissions to gain privileges via the -r (remount) option, which causes the file system to be remounted with just the read-only flag, which effectively clears the nosuid, nodev, and other flags.