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Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2016-4333

High
8.6/10

Summary

The HDF5 1.8.16 library allocating space for the array using a value from the file has an impact within the loop for initializing said array allowing a value within the file to modify the loop's terminator. Due to this, an aggressor can cause the loop's index to point outside the bounds of the array when initializing it.

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • HIGH
  • CHANGED
  • REQUIRED
  • NONE
  • 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