CAPEC-24

How the attack unfolds

1. Explore

   The attacker looks for a way in.

   1. [Survey] The attacker surveys the target application, possibly as a valid and authenticated user

      2 techniques

      • Spidering web sites for inputs that involve potential filtering
      • Brute force guessing of filtered inputs

2. Experiment

   They probe what they found.

   2. [Attempt injections] Try to feed overly long data to the system. This can be done manually or a dynamic tool (black box) can be used to automate this. An attacker can also use a custom script for that purpose.

      3 techniques

      • Brute force attack through black box penetration test tool.
      • Fuzzing of communications protocols
      • Manual testing of possible inputs with attack data.

   3. [Monitor responses] Watch for any indication of failure occurring. Carefully watch to see what happened when filter failure occurred. Did the data get in?

      2 techniques

      • Boron tagging. Choose clear attack inputs that are easy to notice in output. In binary this is often 0xa5a5a5a5 (alternating 1s and 0s). Another obvious tag value is all zeroes, but it is not always obvious what goes wrong if the null values get into the data.
      • Check Log files. An attacker with access to log files can look at the outcome of bad input.

3. Exploit

   They carry out the attack.

   4. [Abuse the system through filter failure] An attacker writes a script to consistently induce the filter failure.

      3 techniques

      • DoS through filter failure. The attacker causes the system to crash or stay down because of its failure to filter properly.
      • Malicious code execution. An attacker introduces a malicious payload and executes arbitrary code on the target system.
      • An attacker can use the filter failure to introduce malicious data into the system and leverage a subsequent SQL injection, Cross Site Scripting, Command Injection or similar weakness if it exists.

Prerequisites

• Ability to control the length of data passed to an active filter.

Skills required

• Low skill

  An attacker can simply overflow a buffer by inserting a long string into an attacker-modifiable injection vector. The result can be a DoS.

• High skill

  Exploiting a buffer overflow to inject malicious code into the stack of a software system or even the heap can require a higher skill level.

Signs of an attack

• Many exceptions are thrown by the application's filter modules in a short period of time. Check the logs. See if the probes are coming from the same IP address.

Consequences

Mitigations

• Make sure that ANY failure occurring in the filtering or input validation routine is properly handled and that offending input is NOT allowed to go through. Basically make sure that the vault is closed when failure occurs.

• Pre-design: Use a language or compiler that performs automatic bounds checking.

• Pre-design through Build: Compiler-based canary mechanisms such as StackGuard, ProPolice and the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag. Unless this provides automatic bounds checking, it is not a complete solution.

• Operational: Use OS-level preventative functionality. Not a complete solution.

• Design: Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.

Weaknesses it exploits

• CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
• CWE-74 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component
• CWE-118 Incorrect Access of Indexable Resource
• CWE-119 Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
• CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input
• CWE-680 Integer Overflow to Buffer Overflow
• CWE-697 Incorrect Comparison
• CWE-733 Compiler Optimization Removal or Modification of Security-critical Code

Recent CVEs with these weaknesses

1. 9.6CVE-2026-1081862026-11-10

   Improper Input Validation in Zoom Workplace for Windows may allow an unauthenticated user to conduct an escalation of privilege via network access.

2. 4.9CVE-2026-1054272026-11-10

   Improper input validation in Ivanti EPMM before version 12.10.0.1, 12.9.0.3, and 12.8.0.5 allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to permanently disable all Apache HTTPS services resulting in denial of service.

3. 6.7CVE-2026-1054262026-11-10

   Improper input validation in Ivanti EPMM before version 12.10.0.1, 12.9.0.3, and 12.8.0.5 allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to set arbitrary Linux kernel parameters as root.

4. 4.3CVE-2026-1231782026-11-10

   An insufficient input validation vulnerability in the listed NETGEAR Orbi Models router allows an authenticated administrator connected to the local network to execute unauthorized commands and modify the router’s software and functionalit…

5. 8.8CVE-2026-1249482026-11-10

   Incorrect boundary conditions, use-after-free in the Graphics component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 160 and Firefox ESR 153.7.

6. 8.8CVE-2026-1249472026-11-10

   Incorrect boundary conditions in the Graphics component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 160.

7. 8.8CVE-2026-1249262026-11-10

   Incorrect boundary conditions in the WebRTC component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 160 and Firefox ESR 153.7.

8. 8.8CVE-2026-1249242026-11-10

   Incorrect boundary conditions in the Graphics: WebRender component. This vulnerability was fixed in Firefox 160 and Firefox ESR 153.7.

The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.

Related attack patterns

Part of

• CAPEC-100 Overflow Buffers

Examples

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