A stack-based buffer overflow was reported [1],[2] in Ettercap <= 0.7.5.1. A boundary error within the scanloadhosts() function (in src/ecscan.c), when parsing entries from a hosts list, could be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow via an overly long entry. In order to exploit this, a user must be tricked into loading a malicious host file.

This has not yet been corrected upstream, but a proposed patch is available [3].

The initial report [1] indicates that this was given the name CVE-2012-0722.

[1] http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/23945/ [2] https://secunia.com/advisories/51731/ [3] http://www.securation.com/files/2013/01/ec.patch