Mayhem Case Studies

In computer science, reachability is the ability to find a path from one node in a graph to another. A reachable assertion is an assertion that specifies a condition that must be satisfied for a particular path to be considered reachable.

CWE-20 - Improper Imput Validation in a web application can allow an attacker to supply malicious user input that is then executed by the vulnerable web application. Improper input validation can be used to bypass security mechanisms, such as authentication and authorization controls.

A null pointer dereference is a programming error that can occur when a program attempts to deference a null pointer. This can happen when the programmer mistakenly assumes that a pointer pointing to NULL is actually pointing to a valid object.

CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption occurs when an application does not properly control the number and/or size of resources that it allocates. When this happens, it can consume too many resources. This can lead to performance degradation, denial-of-service conditions, and resource leaks.

Out-of-bounds reads occur when a program attempts to read data from memory that is outside of the bounds of what it is allowed to access. This can happen when a programmer makes a mistake in their code, or if malicious code is injected into a program.

Dynamically managed services are a great way to reduce the administrative burden of keeping track of which servers are running which services. However, if these services are not properly controlled, it can lead to security vulnerabilities.

CWE 248-Uncaught Exception occurs when an exception is not caught by a programming construct or by the programmer. In Java, for example, this would be an unhandled exception that would terminate the program.

A divide by zero error is typically caused when a program attempts to divide a number by zero. This can happen in mathematical calculations, or when trying to parse data that contains invalid characters.

Is hacking a crime? The US Justice Dept says it will no longer prosecute good-faith security researchers, but what constitutes good-faith security research? Bryan McAninch (Aph3x) talks about his organization, Hacking Is Not A Crime, and the ethical line it draws on various hacking activities.