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Fencer Intel
medium 6.8

CVE-2011-1720 json

The SMTP server in Postfix before 2.5.13, 2.6.x before 2.6.10, 2.7.x before 2.7.4, and 2.8.x before 2.8.3, when certain Cyrus SASL authenti…

published 2011-05-13 15 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2011-1719

cvss
6.8
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
21.7%
EPSS 21.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 97%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The SMTP server in Postfix before 2.5.13, 2.6.x before 2.6.10, 2.7.x before 2.7.4, and 2.8.x before 2.8.3, when certain Cyrus SASL authentication methods are enabled, does not create a new server handle after client authentication fails, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (heap memory corruption and daemon crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via an invalid AUTH command with one method followed by an AUTH command with a different method.

Patch / fix

  • postfix Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.8.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-1720

  • postfix RHEL 4 2:2.2.10-1.5.el4
  • postfix RHEL 5 2:2.3.3-2.3.el5_6
  • postfix RHEL 6 2:2.6.6-2.2.el6_1
  • postfix-pflogsumm RHEL 4 2:2.2.10-1.5.el4
  • postfix-pflogsumm RHEL 5 2:2.3.3-2.3.el5_6
  • postfix-perl-scripts RHEL 6 2:2.6.6-2.2.el6_1

red hat advisories RHSA-2011:0843

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2011-1720 updated cvss 4.3

(smtpd): Crash due to improper management of SASL handlers for SMTP sessions

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5.6.z server) postfix 2.3.3-2.3.el5_6, postfix-pflogsumm 2.3.3-2.3.el5_6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 postfix 2.2.10-1.5.el4, postfix-pflogsumm 2.2.10-1.5.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 postfix 2.2.10-1.5.el4, postfix-pflogsumm 2.2.10-1.5.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 postfix 2.2.10-1.5.el4, postfix-pflogsumm 2.2.10-1.5.el4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) postfix 2.6.6-2.2.el6_1, postfix-perl-scripts 2.6.6-2.2.el6_1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) postfix 2.6.6-2.2.el6_1, postfix-perl-scripts 2.6.6-2.2.el6_1
    +1 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 postfix 2.2.10-1.5.el4, postfix-pflogsumm 2.2.10-1.5.el4
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0843

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

21.69% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 97% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.