Skip to main content

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2018-20452

High
8.8/10

Summary

The read_MSAT_body function in ole.c in libxls 1.4.0 has an invalid free that allows attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted file, because of inconsistent memory management (new versus free) in ole2_read_header in ole.c.

  • 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