CWE•Base•Draft•12 recent CVEs
CWE-123Write-what-where Condition
Description
Any condition where the attacker has the ability to write an arbitrary value to an arbitrary location, often as the result of a buffer overflow.
Common consequences
- Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control→Modify Memory,Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands,Gain Privileges or Assume Identity,DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart,BypaClearly, write-what-where conditions can be used to write data to areas of memory outside the scope of a policy. Also, they almost invariably can be used to execute arbitrary code, which is usually outside the scope of a program's implicit
- Integrity,Availability→DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart,Modify MemoryMany memory accesses can lead to program termination, such as when writing to addresses that are invalid for the current process.
- Access Control,Other→Bypass Protection Mechanism,OtherWhen the consequence is arbitrary code execution, this can often be used to subvert any other security service.
Potential mitigations
- Architecture and DesignUse a language that provides appropriate memory abstractions.
- OperationUse OS-level preventative functionality integrated after the fact. Not a complete solution.
Related CWEs
Recent CVEs classified under this CWE
CVE-2026-474737.42026-07-14CVE-2026-452577.82026-06-26CVE-2026-301219.12026-06-15CVE-2026-463237.82026-06-09CVE-2026-463007.82026-05-23CVE-2026-435007.82026-05-11CVE-2026-432848.82026-05-08CVE-2026-419527.82026-04-29CVE-2025-148572026-04-07CVE-2025-698099.82026-03-16CVE-2025-99008.82025-09-23CVE-2024-4247910.02024-08-12