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Fencer Intel
medium 6.8

CVE-2012-3523 json

The STARTTLS implementation in nnrpd in INN before 2.5.3 does not properly restrict I/O buffering, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers…

published 2012-11-11 13 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-3478

cvss
6.8
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
3.2%
EPSS 3.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 88%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The STARTTLS implementation in nnrpd in INN before 2.5.3 does not properly restrict I/O buffering, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to insert commands into encrypted sessions by sending a cleartext command that is processed after TLS is in place, related to a "plaintext command injection" attack, a similar issue to CVE-2011-0411.

Patch / fix

  • inn2 Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.5.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3523

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-2012-3523 updated cvss 4.0

(nnrpd): Prone to STARTTLS plaintext command injection

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 inn
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

3.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 88% 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-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

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.