About this interactive
What you are doing: naming the application attack from the weakness a defender is looking at.
A deserialization attack hides hostile code in data; when the server rebuilds that data into an object, the code runs. A buffer overflow writes more into a fixed space than it holds, corrupting the memory beside it, which can crash the program or redirect what it runs next. A path traversal bends a request path to climb out of the intended folder and reach files it should not.
How to use it: ask what was abused. Data rebuilt into an object, a fixed space overrun, or a path that escaped its folder?
What you'll learn
- Name the application attack a defender is looking at from the weakness it abuses: a deserialization attack, a buffer overflow or a path traversal
Aligned to
CompTIA Security+
2.3
Explain various types of vulnerabilities.
2.4
Given a scenario, analyze indicators of malicious activity.
Key terms
- Deserialization
- The reverse process of serialization, reconstructing an object from its stored or transmitted format.
- Buffer Overflow
- A software vulnerability that occurs when a program writes more data to a fixed-size memory buffer than it can hold, overwriting adjacent memory. Attackers exploit buffer overflows to crash programs or execute arbitrary malicious code.
- Path Traversal
- An attack that exploits application inputs to access files and directories outside the intended web root by manipulating file path references.
- CWE-502
- A Common Weakness Enumeration entry describing the risk of deserializing untrusted data, which can allow attackers to inject and execute malicious objects.
Topics
Deserialization
Buffer Overflow
Path Traversal
Interactive
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