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Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2008-5279

Severity High
Score 10/10

Summary

The Local ZIM Server (zcs.exe) in Zilab Chat and Instant Messaging (ZIM) Server 2.1 and earlier allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via (1) heap-based buffer overflows involving multiple vectors including a long room name and a long source account, and (2) a stack-based buffer overflow with a long username in an information request. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE
  • COMPLETE

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