Description
Memory leak in a certain Red Hat patch, applied to vsftpd 2.0.5 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and Fedora 6 through 8, and on Foresight Linux and rPath appliances, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of CWD commands, as demonstrated by an attack on a daemon with the deny_file configuration option.
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Red Hat
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| RHEL 5 | vsftpd | 2.0.5-12.el5 | RHSA-2008:0295 |
Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
Exploit-DB 3
- vsftpd 2.0.5 - 'CWD' (Authenticated) Remote Memory Consumption EDB-5814 · dos · Jun 14, 2008 · verified
- vsftpd 2.0.5 - 'deny_file' Option Remote Denial of Service (1) EDB-31818 · dos · May 21, 2008 · verified
- vsftpd 2.0.5 - 'deny_file' Option Remote Denial of Service (2) EDB-31819 · dos · May 21, 2008 · verified
GitHub 1 repository
-
antogit-sys/CVE-2007-5962 ★ 1 · May 22, 2023
vsftpd 2.0.5 - 'CWD' (Authenticated) Remote Memory Consumption
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
Advisories 1
- RHSA-2008:0295 Red Hat Security Advisory: vsftpd security and bug fix update Red Hat Security Advisories (RHSA) · Jun 26, 2026
References
- http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Advisories:rPSA-2008-0185
- FEDORA-2008-4347 vendor-advisory
- 30341 third-party-advisory
- 5814 exploit
- 30354 third-party-advisory
- RHSA-2008:0295 vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2008-4362 vendor-advisory
- [oss-security] 20080521 Re: vsftpd CVE-2007-5962 (Red Hat / Fedora specific) mailing-list
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=397011
- vsftpd-denyfile-dos(42593) vdb-entry
- FEDORA-2008-4373 vendor-advisory
- ADV-2008-1600 vdb-entry
- [oss-security] 20080521 Re: vsftpd CVE-2007-5962 (Red Hat / Fedora specific) mailing-list
- 29322 vdb-entry
- oval:org.mitre.oval:def:8850 vdb-entry signature
- [oss-security] 20080521 vsftpd CVE-2007-5962 (Red Hat / Fedora specific) mailing-list
- 20080606 rPSA-2008-0185-1 vsftpd mailing-list
- 1020079 vdb-entry