What are some real-world examples of heap overflow vulnerabilities?

What are some real-world examples of heap overflow vulnerabilities?

Heap overflow vulnerabilities occur when a program writes more data to a heap memory area than it was allocated. One notable example is the 2014 Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL, which allowed attackers to read sensitive data from the memory of affected servers.

Can you explain how the Heartbleed bug exploited heap overflow?

Certainly! Heartbleed exploited a flaw in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension. By sending a malformed heartbeat request, an attacker could trick the server into returning more data than intended, potentially leaking sensitive information stored in the heap.

Are there any other examples besides Heartbleed?

Yes, another example is the 2015 vulnerability in the GNU C Library (glibc), known as CVE-2015-7547. This vulnerability allowed attackers to exploit heap overflows in certain network services, leading to remote code execution.

How can developers protect against heap overflow vulnerabilities?

Developers can protect against heap overflow vulnerabilities by using safe memory management practices, such as bounds checking, using memory-safe languages, and employing tools like AddressSanitizer to detect memory errors during development.