CVE-2012-10023
Published: 05 August 2025
Summary
CVE-2012-10023 is a medium-severity Stack-based Buffer Overflow (CWE-121) vulnerability in Freefloat Freefloat Ftp Server. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked in the top 0.8% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-16 (Memory Protection).
Deeper analysis
CVE-2012-10023 is a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CWE-121) in FreeFloat FTP Server version 1.0.0. The server fails to properly validate input passed to the USER command, allowing an overly long username string to overflow the buffer allocated for user authentication. This memory corruption enables remote attackers to overwrite adjacent memory regions and potentially execute arbitrary code.
The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating it is exploitable over the network with low complexity and no privileges or user interaction required. Remote, unauthenticated attackers can trigger the flaw by connecting to the FTP server and sending a specially crafted USER command, achieving high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts through arbitrary code execution on the server host.
Advisories and resources referenced in the CVE include a Secunia advisory (archived), the vendor's archived site, and exploit details from sites like Exploit-DB (exploit 15689) and a Metasploit module (windows/ftp/freefloatftp_user.rb). These provide proof-of-concept exploits but no specific patch details are noted in the CVE information.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2012-6577
Vulnerability details
A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability exists in FreeFloat FTP Server version 1.0.0. The server fails to properly validate input passed to the USER command, allowing remote attackers to overwrite memory and potentially execute arbitrary code. The flaw is triggered by…
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sending an overly long username string, which overflows the buffer allocated for user authentication.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Direct remote unauthenticated RCE via crafted input to public-facing FTP service matches T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly requires validation of inputs such as the overly long USER command string to prevent stack-based buffer overflows.
Mandates identification, prioritization, and remediation of flaws like this buffer overflow vulnerability through patching or upgrades.
Implements memory protections such as stack canaries, ASLR, and DEP to prevent exploitation of the buffer overflow for arbitrary code execution.