Exam 312-50v11 topic 1 question 40 discussion

A network administrator discovers several unknown files in the root directory of his Linux FTP server. One of the files is a tarball, two are shell script files, and the third is a binary file is named `nc.` The FTP server's access logs show that the anonymous user account logged in to the server, uploaded the files, and extracted the contents of the tarball and ran the script using a function provided by the FTP server's software. The ps command shows that the nc file is running as process, and the netstat command shows the nc process is listening on a network port.
What kind of vulnerability must be present to make this remote attack possible?