heap overflow

A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc(). This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact. This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore. The different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase. This listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance. The buffer is allocated heap memory with a fixed size, but there is no guarantee the string in argv[1] will not exceed this size and cause an overflow. This MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources. MemberOf Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 970 SFP Secondary Cluster: Faulty Buffer Access MemberOf Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1161 SEI CERT C Coding Standard - Guidelines 07. Characters and Strings (STR) MemberOf Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1399 Comprehensive Categorization: Memory Safety MemberOf View - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries). 1435 Weaknesses in the 2025 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses There is significant inconsistency regarding the "buffer overflow" term, which can have multiple interpretations and uses. Many people mean "writing past the end of a buffer." Others mean "writing past the end of a buffer, or before the beginning of a buffer." Still others might include "read" in the term.