CVE-2014-9660 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

75%

Complexity

99%

Confidentiality

106%

CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference

The _bdf_parse_glyphs function in bdf/bdflib.c in FreeType before 2.5.4 does not properly handle a missing ENDCHAR record, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted BDF font.

CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 7.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P).

Demo Examples

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

While there are no complete fixes aside from conscientious programming, the following steps will go a long way to ensure that NULL pointer dereferences do not occur.


               
}
/* make use of pointer1 *//* ... */

If you are working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the if statement; and unlock when it has finished.

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

If an attacker provides an address that appears to be well-formed, but the address does not resolve to a hostname, then the call to gethostbyaddr() will return NULL. Since the code does not check the return value from gethostbyaddr (CWE-252), a NULL pointer dereference would then occur in the call to strcpy().

Note that this example is also vulnerable to a buffer overflow (see CWE-119).

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

In the following code, the programmer assumes that the system always has a property named "cmd" defined. If an attacker can control the program's environment so that "cmd" is not defined, the program throws a NULL pointer exception when it attempts to call the trim() method.


               
cmd = cmd.trim();

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This application has registered to handle a URL when sent an intent:


               
}......
}
}
int length = URL.length();
...

The application assumes the URL will always be included in the intent. When the URL is not present, the call to getStringExtra() will return null, thus causing a null pointer exception when length() is called.

Overview

First reported 10 years ago

2015-02-08 11:59:00

Last updated 6 years ago

2018-10-30 16:27:00

Affected Software

OpenSUSE 13.1

13.1

OpenSUSE 13.2

13.2

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS

10.04

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS

12.04

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS (Long-Term Support)

14.04

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 14.10

14.10

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 15.04

15.04

Debian Linux 7.0

7.0

Oracle Solaris 11.2

11.2

Fedora 20

20

Fedora 21

21

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6.0

6.0

RedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7.0

7.0

RedHat Enterprise Linux HPC Node 7.0

7.0

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6.0

6.0

RedHat Enterprise Linux Server 7.0

7.0

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6.0

6.0

RedHat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7.0

7.0

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