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BftpdApplication · Bftpd Project

CVE-2020-6162

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2020-01-10
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered in Bftpd 5.3. Under certain circumstances, an out-of-bounds read is triggered due to an uninitialized value. The daemon crashes at startup in the hidegroups_init function in dirlist.c.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Bftpd 5.3 contains an out-of-bounds read vulnerability caused by an uninitialized value in the hidegroups_init function in dirlist.c, resulting in a daemon crash at startup.

MitigationUpgrade to a patched version of Bftpd. If patching is not immediately possible, avoid running the affected service until a fix is available.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
BftpdApplication
Affected:= 5.3

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm bftpd is installed
    Run 'which bftpd' or check your system's package manager for bftpd
    Affected if bftpd binary or package is found on the system
  2. Identify the installed bftpd version
    Run 'bftpd -v' or 'bftpd --version', or query via package manager (e.g., 'dpkg -l | grep bftpd' or 'rpm -q bftpd')
    Affected if The version reported is exactly 5.3
  3. Attempt to start the bftpd daemon
    Start the bftpd service via init system or run 'bftpd' directly and observe output
    Affected if The daemon crashes or fails to start with an error related to dirlist.c or hidegroups_init, indicating the uninitialized value bug is present
  4. Inspect dirlist.c if source is available
    Locate dirlist.c in the bftpd source tree and search for the hidegroups_init function to verify the vulnerable code path exists
    Affected if The function contains uninitialized variable usage and matches the vulnerable version 5.3 source

If bftpd version 5.3 is installed and crashes at startup, the environment is affected by this CVE.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade to a patched version of Bftpd. If patching is not immediately possible, avoid running the affected service until a fix is available.

Fix this in Bftpd Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,040
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-6162 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data