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Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2017-8691

High
8.8/10

Summary

Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, and Windows 7 SP1 allow an attacker to execute code remotely on a target system when the Windows font library fails to properly handle specially crafted embedded fonts, aka "Express Compressed Fonts Remote Code Execution Vulnerability."

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • 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