CWE-119Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

Description

Common consequences· 3

• Integrity / Confidentiality / Availability — Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, Modify Memory
  If the memory accessible by the attacker can be effectively controlled, it may be possible to execute arbitrary code, as with a standard buffer overflow. If the attacker can overwrite a pointer's worth of memory (usually 32 or 64 bits), they can alter the intended control flow by redirecting a function pointer to their own malicious code. Even when the attacker can only modify a single byte arbitrary code execution can be possible. Sometimes this is because the same problem can be exploited repeatedly to the same effect. Other times it is because the attacker can overwrite security-critical application-specific data -- such as a flag indicating whether the user is an administrator.
• Availability / Confidentiality — Read Memory, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)
  Out of bounds memory access will very likely result in the corruption of relevant memory, and perhaps instructions, possibly leading to a crash. Other attacks leading to lack of availability are possible, including putting the program into an infinite loop.
• Confidentiality — Read Memory
  In the case of an out-of-bounds read, the attacker may have access to sensitive information. If the sensitive information contains system details, such as the current buffer's position in memory, this knowledge can be used to craft further attacks, possibly with more severe consequences.

Potential mitigations· 5

• [Requirements]
• [Architecture and Design]
• [Operation, Build and Compilation]
• [Implementation]
• [Operation, Build and Compilation]

Related CAPEC attack patterns· 12

Exploits (incoming)10

Compliance frameworks addressing this (incoming)6

(incoming)134

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Related by meaning· 6

Nearest entities by semantic similarity across the cs-graph corpus.