Vulnerability Monitor

The vendors, products, and vulnerabilities you care about

CVE-2011-1720

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.

Security Impact Summary

CVE-2011-1720 is a security vulnerability that . Impacting 1 product from postfix organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Documented in 2011, this vulnerability occurred amid the cloud computing expansion era, where traditional network perimeter security models were being reevaluated. Organizations were transitioning from isolated infrastructure to interconnected systems, creating new attack surfaces that vulnerabilities like this could exploit.

Published

2011-05-13T17:05:43.207

Last Modified

2025-04-11T00:51:21.963

Status

Deferred

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv2: 6.8 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: MEDIUM
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

8.6

Impact Score

6.4

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-119

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.10	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.11	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.12	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.13	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.14	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.15	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.16	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.17	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.18	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.0.19	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.1.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.10	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.11	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.2.12	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.10	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.11	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.12	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.13	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.14	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.15	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.16	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.17	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.18	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.3.19	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.10	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.11	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.12	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.13	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.14	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.4.15	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.10	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.11	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.5.12	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.4	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.5	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.6	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.7	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.8	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.6.9	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.7.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.7.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.7.2	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.7.3	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.8.0	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.8.1	Yes
Application	postfix	postfix	2.8.2	Yes

References

http://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=JSA10705 ([email protected])
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-05/msg00002.html ([email protected])
http://secunia.com/advisories/44500 Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-201206-33.xml ([email protected])
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8247 ([email protected])
http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2233 ([email protected])
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/727230 US Government Resource ([email protected])
http://www.mail-archive.com/postfix-announce%40postfix.org/msg00007.html ([email protected])
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2011:090 ([email protected])
http://www.osvdb.org/72259 ([email protected])
http://www.postfix.org/CVE-2011-1720.html Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
http://www.postfix.org/announcements/postfix-2.8.3.html Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/517917/100/0/threaded ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/47778 Patch ([email protected])
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1025521 ([email protected])
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-1131-1 ([email protected])
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699035 ([email protected])
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/67359 ([email protected])
http://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=JSA10705 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-05/msg00002.html (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://secunia.com/advisories/44500 Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-201206-33.xml (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8247 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2233 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/727230 US Government Resource (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.mail-archive.com/postfix-announce%40postfix.org/msg00007.html (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2011:090 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.osvdb.org/72259 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.postfix.org/CVE-2011-1720.html Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.postfix.org/announcements/postfix-2.8.3.html Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/517917/100/0/threaded (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/47778 Patch (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1025521 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-1131-1 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=699035 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/67359 (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For postfix's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.