Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

Opis

The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop.

Skutki

• Availability

  DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Amplification

  An infinite loop will cause unexpected consumption of resources, such as CPU cycles or memory. The software's operation may slow down, or cause a long time to respond.

Przykłady podatności

• CVE-2025-32399 Chain: library for implementing Profinet devices does not check an input for a loop condition (CWE-606), allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) via a crafted RPC packet
• CVE-2022-22224 Chain: an operating system does not properly process malformed Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Type/Length/Value Identifiers (TLV) (CWE-703), which can cause the process to enter an infinite loop (CWE-835)
• CVE-2022-25304 A Python machine communication platform did not account for receiving a malformed packet with a null size, causing the receiving function to never update the message buffer and be caught in an infinite loop.
• CVE-2011-1027 Chain: off-by-one error (CWE-193) leads to infinite loop (CWE-835) using invalid hex-encoded characters.
• CVE-2011-1142 Chain: self-referential values in recursive definitions lead to infinite loop.
• CVE-2011-1002 NULL UDP packet is never cleared from a queue, leading to infinite loop.
• CVE-2006-6499 Chain: web browser crashes due to infinite loop - "bad looping logic [that relies on] floating point math [CWE-1339] to exit the loop [CWE-835]"
• CVE-2010-4476 Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
• CVE-2010-4645 Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
• CVE-2010-2534 Chain: improperly clearing a pointer in a linked list leads to infinite loop.
• CVE-2013-1591 Chain: an integer overflow (CWE-190) in the image size calculation causes an infinite loop (CWE-835) which sequentially allocates buffers without limits (CWE-1325) until the stack is full.
• CVE-2008-3688 Chain: A denial of service may be caused by an uninitialized variable (CWE-457) allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) resulting from a connection to an unresponsive server.

Słabość nadrzędna

• CWE-834 Excessive Iteration

Kiedy powstaje

• Implementation

Dotyczy

Not Language-Specific, Not Technology-Specific

Źródła

1. The Art of Software Security Assessment — Mark Dowd, John McDonald, Justin Schuh, Chapter 7, "Looping Constructs", Page 327, Addison Wesley, 2006
2. Automated Source Code Security Measure (ASCSM) — Object Management Group (OMG), ASCSM-CWE-835, 2016