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Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2016-8632

High
7.8/10

Summary

The tipc_msg_build function in net/tipc/msg.c in the Linux kernel through 4.8.11 does not validate the relationship between the minimum fragment length and the maximum packet size, which allows local users to gain privileges or cause a denial of service (heap-based buffer overflow) by leveraging the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • HIGH
  • HIGH

CWE-119 - Buffer Overflow

Buffer overflow attacks involve data transit and operations exceeding the restricted memory buffer, thereby corrupting or overwriting data in adjacent memory locations. Such overflow allows the attacker to run arbitrary code or manipulate the existing code to cause privilege escalation, data breach, denial of service, system crash and even complete system compromise. Given that languages such as C and C++ lack default safeguards against overwriting or accessing data in their memory, applications utilizing these languages are most susceptible to buffer overflows attacks.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published