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CWE-123 — Write-what-where Condition

provenance: imported · CWE: CWE-123

CWE-123: Write-what-where Condition

MITRE CWE weakness

Kind Weakness
Abstraction Base
Status Draft
Likelihood of exploit High

Description

Any condition where the attacker has the ability to write an arbitrary value to an arbitrary location, often as the result of a buffer overflow.

Common consequences

  • Integrity, Confidentiality, Availability, Access Control: Modify Memory, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands, Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Bypass Protection Mechanism
  • Integrity, Availability: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, Modify Memory
  • Access Control, Other: Bypass Protection Mechanism, Other

Mitigations

Architecture and Design — Use a language that provides appropriate memory abstractions.

Operation — Use OS-level preventative functionality integrated after the fact. Not a complete solution.

References

  • CWE page: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/123.html
  • CWE list: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/index.html