Weakness · Medium
CWE-468: Incorrect Pointer Scaling
What it is
In C and C++, one may often accidentally refer to the wrong memory due to the semantics of when math operations are implicitly scaled.
- Severity (our rating)
- Medium
- Likelihood of exploit
- Medium
- Introduced during
- Implementation
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
What an attacker can do
- Read Memory (Confidentiality, Integrity)
- Modify Memory (Confidentiality, Integrity)
How to prevent it
Architecture and Design
- Use a platform with high-level memory abstractions.
- Use technologies for preventing buffer overflows.
Implementation
- Always use array indexing instead of direct pointer manipulation.
How to find it
- Automated Static Analysis. Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
H2 Security
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.