CAPEC-46

Detailed Abstraction Level
Meta — Very abstract, high-level category
Standard — Specific enough to understand
Detailed — Tied to specific technique Draft MITRE CAPEC Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development
Incomplete — Partially defined
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CAPEC Likelihood: High Severity: High
Overflow Variables and Tags

Description

This type of attack leverages the use of tags or variables from a formatted configuration data to cause buffer overflow. The adversary crafts a malicious HTML page or configuration file that includes oversized strings, thus causing an overflow.

Prerequisites

The target program consumes user-controllable data in the form of tags or variables.

The target program does not perform sufficient boundary checking.

Mitigations

Use a language or compiler that performs automatic bounds checking.

Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.

Compiler-based canary mechanisms such as StackGuard, ProPolice and the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag. Unless this provides automatic bounds checking, it is not a complete solution.

Use OS-level preventative functionality. Not a complete solution.

Do not trust input data from user. Validate all user input.

Skills Required

[Low] An adversary can simply overflow a buffer by inserting a long string into an adversary-modifiable injection vector. The result can be a DoS.

[High] Exploiting a buffer overflow to inject malicious code into the stack of a software system or even the heap can require a higher skill level.