Overview
The cybersecurity world is facing yet another challenge with the discovery of a new vulnerability that affects the popular waveform viewer, GTKWave. Codenamed CVE-2023-35996, this vulnerability exploits weaknesses in the array index validation of the software, specifically in its fstReaderIterBlocks2 tdelta functionality. This vulnerability has the potential to permit arbitrary code execution, which poses a significant threat to system security and data integrity.
Affected users and organizations need to be aware of the implications of this vulnerability. It allows an attacker to manipulate the execution of an application, potentially leading to system compromise and data leakage. As such, understanding its intricacies and mitigating its risks are paramount.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2023-35996
Severity: High (7.8 CVSS v3 Score)
Attack Vector: File
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise, potential data leakage
Affected Products
No phone number, email, or personal info required.
Product | Affected Versions
GTKWave | 3.3.115
How the Exploit Works
The exploit takes advantage of improper array index validation vulnerabilities within the fstReaderIterBlocks2 tdelta functionality of GTKWave. By crafting a malicious .fst file, an attacker can manipulate the indexing process, especially when signal_lens is set to 0.
This manipulation can lead to out of bounds write, allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary code on the victim’s system. However, this requires the victim to open the malicious .fst file, meaning user interaction is a key component in the successful execution of this exploit.
Conceptual Example Code
Here’s a conceptual example of a malformed .fst file that could potentially exploit this vulnerability. Note that this is a simplified representation and actual exploit code may differ:
# Create a malicious .fst file
with open('malicious.fst', 'w') as file:
file.write('header info...')
# Generate malicious content that leads to out of bounds write
file.write('malicious content...')
file.write('footer info...')The above conceptual code creates a .fst file with malicious content designed to exploit the array index validation vulnerability. When this file is opened in GTKWave 3.3.115, it could potentially lead to arbitrary code execution.