# CVE-2009-4593: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can crash the Bftpd daemon by exploiting a missing null terminator in the utmp logging function.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 7 Jan 2010
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-8842-36j7-97qj

## What is CVE-2009-4593?

CVE-2009-4593 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Jan 2010. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The bftpdutmp_log function in bftpdutmp.c in Bftpd before 2.4 does not place a '\0' character at the end of the string value of the ut.bu_host structure member, which might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via unspecified vectors. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2009-4593?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Jesse Smith Bftpd.

## How do I fix CVE-2009-4593?

No fix has been published for CVE-2009-4593 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2009-4593 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-4593 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2009-4593 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2009-4593 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 7 Jan 2010. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2009-4593 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4593/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4593/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-4593
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2009-4593
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2009-4593

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4593/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.