CVE-2012-4409: Mcrypt

Medium severity, CVSS 6.8. EPSS: 15.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Stack-based buffer overflow in the check_file_head function in extra.c in mcrypt 2.6.8 and earlier allows user-assisted remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via an encrypted file with a crafted header containing long salt data that is not properly handled during decryption.

Affected products

• Mcrypt Mcrypt: up to and including 2.6.8; version 2.6.4 only; version 2.6.5 only; version 2.6.6 only; version 2.6.7 only

Published 2012-11-21. Last modified 2026-06-16.