CWE-1325: Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation

What is CWE-1325?

CWE-1325 is Improperly Controlled Sequential Memory Allocation. The flaw arises when the product manages a group of objects or resources and performs a separate memory allocation for each object, but it does not properly limit the total amount of memory that is consumed by all of the combined objects. The database currently holds 16 vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-1325 and none of them are in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

OWASP Top 10 Rank-
Related CVES (365 days)16
AbstractionBase
Likelihood of exploit-

Vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-1325

16 vulnerabilities1500% increase year over year

No data

No vulnerability data in CISA KEV for CWE-1325

Official definition

ByMitre CWE

The product manages a group of objects or resources and performs a separate memory allocation for each object, but it does not properly limit the total amount of memory that is consumed by all of the combined objects.

While the product might limit the amount of memory that is allocated in a single operation for a single object (such as a malloc of an array), if an attacker can cause multiple objects to be allocated in separate operations, then this might cause higher total memory consumption than the developer intended, leading to a denial of service.

Characteristics

Alternate terms

  • Stack Exhaustion — When a weakness allocates excessive memory on the stack, it is often described as "stack exhaustion," which is a technical impact of the weakness. This technical impact is often encountered as a consequence of CWE-789 and/or CWE-1325.

Modes of introduction

  • Implementation

Common consequences

ImpactScopeExplanation
DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)AvailabilityNot controlling memory allocation can result in a request for too much system memory, possibly leading to a crash of the application due to out-of-memory conditions, or the consumption of a large amount of memory on the system.

Risk mitigations

  1. ImplementationEnsure multiple allocations of the same kind of object are properly tracked - possibly across multiple sessions, requests, or messages. Define an appropriate strategy for handling requests that exceed the limit, and consider supporting a configuration option so that the administrator can extend the amount of memory to be used if necessary.
  2. OperationRun the program using system-provided resource limits for memory. This might still cause the program to crash or exit, but the impact to the rest of the system will be minimized.

Representative vulnerabilities

Below are representative vulnerabilities related to this CWE, prioritized by severity.

Sources (2)
MITRE CWE
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