OWASP Periodic Table of Vulnerabilities - Format String

1 Format String
2 Root Cause Summary
3 Browser / Standards Solution
4 Perimeter Solution
5 Generic Framework Solution
6 Custom Framework Solution
7 Custom Code Solution
8 Discussion / Controversy
9 References

Format String

Root Cause Summary

The root cause of the format string is attacker having the ability to control or write completely the format string used to format data input for some C,C++, and Assembly functions such as fprintf, printf, sprintf, setproctitle, and syslog, potentially leading to buffer overflows or data representation problems.

Browser / Standards Solution

None

Perimeter Solution

Alert and/or block on known format string signatures Generic Framework Solution Prohibit access to vulnerable APIs and provide safe wrappers of those APIs instead.