CWE-468

Base Abstraction Level
Pillar — Highest-level weakness category
Class — Abstract, language-independent
Base — Specific enough to detect
Variant — Tied to specific technology
Compound — Requires multiple weaknesses Incomplete MITRE CWE Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development, may change
Incomplete — Partially defined by MITRE
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CWE Exploit: Medium
Incorrect Pointer Scaling

Description

In C and C++, one may often accidentally refer to the wrong memory due to the semantics of when math operations are implicitly scaled.

Consequences

Confidentiality, Integrity — Read Memory, Modify Memory

Incorrect pointer scaling will often result in buffer overflow conditions. Confidentiality can be compromised if the weakness is in the context of a buffer over-read or under-read.

Mitigations

Phase: Architecture and Design

Use a platform with high-level memory abstractions.

Phase: Implementation

Always use array indexing instead of direct pointer manipulation.

Phase: Architecture and Design

Use technologies for preventing buffer overflows.

Detection

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)