Buffer Overflow
A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions.
How It Works
A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a memory buffer than it was allocated to hold, causing the excess data to spill into adjacent memory regions. This overwrites whatever data or code exists there, corrupting program state and potentially giving attackers control over execution flow.
Stack-based overflows are the most common variant. When a function allocates a fixed-size buffer on the stack and then copies user-controlled input without proper bounds checking, attackers can overflow past the buffer to overwrite the function's return address. When the function completes, instead of returning to legitimate code, execution jumps to attacker-specified memory containing malicious shellcode. Heap-based overflows work differently—they corrupt heap metadata like chunk size fields or free list pointers, leading to arbitrary memory writes when the allocator processes the corrupted structures.
Modern exploitation bypasses defensive mechanisms through techniques like Return-Oriented Programming (ROP), which chains together existing code snippets to avoid non-executable memory protections. Attackers may also use heap spraying to reliably position shellcode at predictable addresses, defeating address randomization.
Impact
- Remote code execution — attacker gains ability to run arbitrary commands with the privileges of the vulnerable process
- Privilege escalation — exploiting kernel or setuid program overflows to gain root/SYSTEM access
- Denial of service — crashes and memory corruption that render systems unusable
- Information disclosure — reading sensitive data from adjacent memory regions that should be inaccessible
- Authentication bypass — overwriting security-critical variables like permission flags or user IDs
Real-World Examples
Fortinet FortiOS suffered a critical buffer overflow (CVE-2025-32756) that allowed unauthenticated remote attackers to execute code as root on firewalls and VPN gateways. Attackers actively exploited this to compromise enterprise network perimeters before patches were available.
The Slammer worm from 2003 exploited a stack overflow in Microsoft SQL Server, spreading to 75,000 hosts in ten minutes by sending a single malformed UDP packet that overwrote the return address with shellcode. No authentication was required.
OpenSSH historically contained a heap overflow in challenge-response authentication that allowed pre-authentication remote root compromise on Unix systems, demonstrating how memory corruption in privileged network services creates maximum impact scenarios.
Mitigation
- Memory-safe languages — Rust, Go, and modern managed languages prevent buffer overflows by design through automatic bounds checking
- Stack canaries — random values placed before return addresses that detect corruption before control transfer
- Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) — randomizes memory locations making exploitation less reliable
- Data Execution Prevention (DEP/NX) — marks memory regions as non-executable, preventing direct shellcode execution
- Bounds checking — validate input sizes before copying, use safe functions like
strncpyinstead ofstrcpy - Fuzzing and static analysis — automated testing to discover overflows before deployment
Recent CVEs (36390)
A malformed packet can cause a buffer overflow in the APS layer of the Ember ZNet stack and lead to an assert. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.3), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An issue was discovered in Samsung Mobile Processor Exynos 9820, 9825, 980, 990, 850, 1080, 2100, and 1280. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An improper array index validation vulnerability exists in the determineMinMax functionality of OFFIS DCMTK 3.6.8. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.4), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
An improper array index validation vulnerability exists in the nowindow functionality of OFFIS DCMTK 3.6.8. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.4), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
Software installed and run as a non-privileged user may conduct improper GPU system calls resulting in platform instability and reboots. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Luxion KeyShot Viewer KSP File Parsing Memory Corruption Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/dp_mst: Fix resetting msg rx state after topology removal If the MST topology is removed during the reception of an MST down. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.0).
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: jffs2: Prevent rtime decompress memory corruption The rtime decompression routine does not fully check bounds during the entirety. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability could allow attackers to write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ring-buffer: Fix overflow in __rb_map_vma An overflow occurred when performing the following calculation: nr_pages = ((nr_subbufs +. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Integer Overflow vulnerability could allow attackers to cause unexpected behavior through arithmetic overflow.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: igb: Fix potential invalid memory access in igb_init_module() The pci_register_driver() can fail and when this happened, the. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability could allow attackers to read data from memory outside the intended buffer boundaries.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: use aligned address in clear_gigantic_page() In current kernel, hugetlb_no_page() calls folio_zero_user() with the fault. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability could allow attackers to write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: use aligned address in copy_user_gigantic_page() In current kernel, hugetlb_wp() calls copy_user_large_folio() with the fault. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability could allow attackers to write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: f2fs: fix to shrink read extent node in batches We use rwlock to protect core structure data of extent tree during its shrink,. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability could allow attackers to read data from memory outside the intended buffer boundaries.
HCL MyXalytics is affected by a weak input validation vulnerability. Rated low severity (CVSS 2.6), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
FreeType 2.8.1 has a signed integer overflow in cf2_doFlex in cff/cf2intrp.c. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.0), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Tenda ac9 v1.0 firmware v15.03.05.19 contains a stack overflow vulnerability in /goform/SetOnlineDevName, which may lead to remote arbitrary code execution. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
In Raptor RDF Syntax Library through 2.0.16, there is a heap-based buffer over-read when parsing triples with the nquads parser in raptor_ntriples_parse_term_internal(). Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.0), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
FastCGI fcgi2 (aka fcgi) 2.x through 2.4.4 has an integer overflow (and resultant heap-based buffer overflow) via crafted nameLen or valueLen values in data to the IPC socket. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.3), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Buffer Overflow vulnerability in Neat Board NFC v.1.20240620.0015 allows a physically proximate attackers to escalate privileges via a crafted payload to the password field. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
TP-Link TL-WR940N V3 and V4 with firmware 3.16.9 and earlier contain a buffer overflow via the dnsserver1 and dnsserver2 parameters at /userRpm/Wan6to4TunnelCfgRpm.htm. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.0), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved's routing protocol daemon (rpd) allows an unauthenticated, network-based attacker to send malformed BGP packets. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.2), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An Out-of-Bounds Read vulnerability in the routing protocol daemon (rpd) of Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved allows an unauthenticated, logically adjacent BGP peer sending a. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A buffer overflow vulnerability in the packet handoff plugin allows an attacker to overwrite memory outside the plugin's buffer. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.7), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Tenda AC6 15.03.05.16. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.7), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
There are many buffer overflow vulnerabilities present in several CGI binaries of the charging station. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
The <redacted>.so library, which is used by <redacted>, is vulnerable to a buffer overflow in the code that handles the deletion of certificates. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An Integer-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the SonicOS via IPSec allows a remote attacker in specific conditions to cause Denial of Service (DoS) and potentially execute arbitrary code by. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A post-authentication stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in SonicOS management allows a remote attacker to crash a firewall and potentially leads to code execution. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.2), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A flaw was found in the OpenJPEG project. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.6), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A flaw was found in the OpenJPEG project. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.6), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A stack-based buffer overflow in Ivanti Connect Secure before version 22.7R2.5, Ivanti Policy Secure before version 22.7R1.2, and Ivanti Neurons for ZTA gateways before version 22.7R2.3 allows a. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.0). Epss exploitation probability 45.1% and no vendor patch available.
Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and Neurons for ZTA contain a stack-based buffer overflow allowing unauthenticated remote code execution, the second major Ivanti VPN zero-day in twelve months.
A malformed 802.15.4 packet causes a buffer overflow to occur leading to an assert and a denial of service. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/amd/display: Adding array index check to prevent memory corruption [Why & How] Array indices out of bound caused memory. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability could allow attackers to write data beyond allocated buffer boundaries leading to code execution or crashes.
RediSearch is a Redis module that provides querying, secondary indexing, and full-text search for Redis. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.0). No vendor patch available.
RedisTimeSeries is a time-series database (TSDB) module for Redis, by Redis. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.0). No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Integer overflow vulnerability during glTF model loading in the 3D engine module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.3), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Buffer overflow vulnerability in the component driver module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.3), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of improper memory address protection in the HUKS module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
This issue is fixed in SCSSU-201801. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An XML External Entity (XXE) injection vulnerability in Intersec Geosafe-ea 2022.12, 2022.13, and 2022.14 allows attackers to perform arbitrary file reading under the privileges of the running. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Stack Buffer Overflow in PX4-Autopilot v1.14.3, which allows attackers to execute commands to exploit this vulnerability and cause the program to refuse to execute. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.9), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. Public exploit code available.
A vulnerability exits in driver snxppamd.sys in SUNIX Parallel Driver x64 - 10.1.0.0, which allows low-privileged users to read and write arbitary i/o port via specially crafted IOCTL requests . Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability exits in driver snxpsamd.sys in SUNIX Serial Driver x64 - 10.1.0.0, which allows low-privileged users to read and write arbitary i/o port via specially crafted IOCTL requests . Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory safety bugs present in Firefox 133 and Thunderbird 133. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Epss exploitation probability 15.1% and no vendor patch available.
Memory safety bugs present in Firefox 133, Thunderbird 133, Firefox ESR 128.5, and Thunderbird 128.5. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.1), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory safety bugs present in Firefox 133, Thunderbird 133, Firefox ESR 115.18, Firefox ESR 128.5, Thunderbird 115.18, and Thunderbird 128.5. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Elspec Engineering G5 Digital Fault Recorder Firmware v1.2.1.12 was discovered to contain a buffer overflow. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
in OpenHarmony v4.1.2 and prior versions allow a local attacker cause the device is unable to boot up through out-of-bounds write. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
in OpenHarmony v4.1.2 and prior versions allow a local attacker cause information leak through out-of-bounds Read. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Multiple Netis WiFi router models contain an additional out-of-bounds read vulnerability similar to CVE-2024-48456, affecting the same broad range of models and firmware versions. Remote unauthenticated attackers can extract sensitive data from device memory including WiFi credentials and configuration secrets.
Multiple Netis WiFi router models contain an out-of-bounds read vulnerability that allows remote unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive information from device memory. The affected models span the WiFi 6 NX10, WiFi 11AC NC65/NC63/NC21, and WiFi MW5360 product lines across multiple firmware versions.
Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System, Intrusion Prevention System and Network Security Monitoring engine. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required.
Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System, Intrusion Prevention System and Network Security Monitoring engine. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.3), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity.
Transient DOS can occur when GVM sends a specific message type to the Vdev-FastRPC backend. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Transient DOS can occur when the driver parses the per STA profile IE and tries to access the EXTN element ID without checking the IE length. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity.
Memory corruption can occur if an already verified IFS2 image is overwritten, bypassing boot verification. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.4), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption can occur when process-specific maps are added to the global list. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Use After Free vulnerability could allow attackers to access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application.
Memory corruption occurs when invoking any IOCTL-calling application that executes all MCDM driver IOCTL calls. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption while processing FIPS encryption or decryption validation functionality IOCTL call. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption while processing IOCTL call invoked from user-space to verify non extension FIPS encryption and decryption functionality. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption while processing FIPS encryption or decryption IOCTL call invoked from user-space. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption when IOCTL call is invoked from user-space to write board data to WLAN driver. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption when IOCTL call is invoked from user-space to read board data. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
information disclosure while invoking the mailbox read API. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.1), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Information disclosure while invoking callback function of sound model driver from ADSP for every valid opcode received from sound model driver. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.1), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
Information disclosure while processing IOCTL call made for releasing a trusted VM process release or opening a channel without initializing the process. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity.
Memory corruption while processing frame command IOCTL calls. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Use After Free vulnerability could allow attackers to access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application.
Memory corruption while invoking IOCTL calls to unmap the DMA buffers. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Use After Free vulnerability could allow attackers to access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application.
Memory corruption when input parameter validation for number of fences is missing for fence frame IOCTL calls,. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
Information Disclosure while invoking the mailbox write API when message received from user is larger than mailbox size. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.6), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Memory corruption while processing IPA statistics, when there are no active clients registered. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.4), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. This Buffer Copy without Size Check vulnerability could allow attackers to overflow a buffer to corrupt adjacent memory.
In Modem, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. Epss exploitation probability 39.2% and no vendor patch available.
In Modem, there is a possible out of bounds write due to an incorrect bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In wlan STA FW, there is a possible out of bounds write due to improper input validation. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In wlan STA driver, there is a possible out of bounds write due to improper input validation. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.1), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In V6 DA, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.6), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In V6 DA, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.6), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In V6 DA, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.6), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In power, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In m4u, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.7), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
FFmpeg n6.1.1 has a vulnerability in the DXA demuxer of the libavformat library allowing for an integer overflow, potentially resulting in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition or other undefined. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.2), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity.
In cc_SendCcImsInfoIndMsg of cc_MmConManagement.c, there is a possible out of bounds write due to a missing bounds check. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In GetCellInfoList() of protocolnetadapter.cpp, there is a possible out of bounds read due to a missing bounds check. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
In Exynos_parsing_user_data_registered_itu_t_t35 of VendorVideoAPI.cpp, there is a possible out of bounds write due to an incorrect bounds check. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.