43%
86%
48%
process_debug_info in dwarf.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a crafted ELF file that contains a negative size value in a CU structure.
process_debug_info in dwarf.c in the Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.29, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a crafted ELF file that contains a negative size value in a CU structure.
CVSS 3.0 Base Score 5.5. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).
CVSS 2.0 Base Score 4.3. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: medium. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P).
The following code allocates memory for a maximum number of widgets. It then gets a user-specified number of widgets, making sure that the user does not request too many. It then initializes the elements of the array using InitializeWidget(). Because the number of widgets can vary for each request, the code inserts a NULL pointer to signify the location of the last widget.
showWidgets(WidgetList);ExitError("Incorrect number of widgets requested!");WidgetList[i] = InitializeWidget();However, this code contains an off-by-one calculation error. It allocates exactly enough space to contain the specified number of widgets, but it does not include the space for the NULL pointer. As a result, the allocated buffer is smaller than it is supposed to be. So if the user ever requests MAX_NUM_WIDGETS, there is an off-by-one buffer overflow (CWE-193) when the NULL is assigned. Depending on the environment and compilation settings, this could cause memory corruption.
The following image processing code allocates a table for images.
...This code intends to allocate a table of size num_imgs, however as num_imgs grows large, the calculation determining the size of the list will eventually overflow (CWE-190). This will result in a very small list to be allocated instead. If the subsequent code operates on the list as if it were num_imgs long, it may result in many types of out-of-bounds problems (CWE-119).
This example applies an encoding procedure to an input string and stores it into a buffer.
}
return dst_buf;die("user string too long, die evil hacker!");
else dst_buf[dst_index++] = user_supplied_string[i];dst_buf[dst_index++] = ';';
/* encode to < */The programmer attempts to encode the ampersand character in the user-controlled string, however the length of the string is validated before the encoding procedure is applied. Furthermore, the programmer assumes encoding expansion will only expand a given character by a factor of 4, while the encoding of the ampersand expands by 5. As a result, when the encoding procedure expands the string it is possible to overflow the destination buffer if the attacker provides a string of many ampersands.
The following code is intended to read an incoming packet from a socket and extract one or more headers.
ParsePacketHeaders(packet, headers);ExitError("too many headers!");The code performs a check to make sure that the packet does not contain too many headers. However, numHeaders is defined as a signed int, so it could be negative. If the incoming packet specifies a value such as -3, then the malloc calculation will generate a negative number (say, -300 if each header can be a maximum of 100 bytes). When this result is provided to malloc(), it is first converted to a size_t type. This conversion then produces a large value such as 4294966996, which may cause malloc() to fail or to allocate an extremely large amount of memory (CWE-195). With the appropriate negative numbers, an attacker could trick malloc() into using a very small positive number, which then allocates a buffer that is much smaller than expected, potentially leading to a buffer overflow.
The following code attempts to save three different identification numbers into an array. The array is allocated from memory using a call to malloc().
id_sequence[2] = 97531;/* Allocate space for an array of three ids. *//* Populate the id array. */The problem with the code above is the value of the size parameter used during the malloc() call. It uses a value of '3' which by definition results in a buffer of three bytes to be created. However the intention was to create a buffer that holds three ints, and in C, each int requires 4 bytes worth of memory, so an array of 12 bytes is needed, 4 bytes for each int. Executing the above code could result in a buffer overflow as 12 bytes of data is being saved into 3 bytes worth of allocated space. The overflow would occur during the assignment of id_sequence[0] and would continue with the assignment of id_sequence[1] and id_sequence[2].
The malloc() call could have used '3*sizeof(int)' as the value for the size parameter in order to allocate the correct amount of space required to store the three ints.
In the following code the method processMessagesFromServer attempts to establish a connection to a server and read and process messages from the server. The method uses a do/while loop to continue trying to establish the connection to the server when an attempt fails.
}
...// create socket to connect to server
}// establish connection to server// if connected then read and process messages from server
...// read and process messages// keep trying to establish connection to the server// close socket and return success or failureHowever, this will create an infinite loop if the server does not respond. This infinite loop will consume system resources and can be used to create a denial of service attack. To resolve this a counter should be used to limit the number of attempts to establish a connection to the server, as in the following code.
}
...// initialize number of attempts counter
}// establish connection to server// increment counter// if connected then read and process messages from server
...// read and process messages// keep trying to establish connection to the server// up to a maximum number of attempts// close socket and return success or failureFor this example the method isReorderNeeded as part of a bookstore application that determines if a particular book needs to be reordered based on the current inventory count and the rate at which the book is being sold.
}
return isReorder;// get inventory count for book// find number of days until inventory count reaches minimum
days++;// if number of days within reorder timeframe// set reorder return boolean to trueisReorder = true;However, the while loop will become an infinite loop if the rateSold input parameter has a value of zero since the inventoryCount will never fall below the minimumCount. In this case the input parameter should be validated to ensure that a value of zero does not cause an infinite loop,as in the following code.
}
...// validate rateSold variablereturn isReorder;ExploitPedia is constantly evolving. Sign up to receive a notification when we release additional functionality.
If you'd like to report a bug or have any suggestions for improvements then please do get in touch with us using this form. We will get back to you as soon as we can.