CVE-2023-35955
Memory Safety in Tonybybell Gtkwave 3.3.115
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-35955 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Tonybybell Gtkwave. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked at the 36th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-39939
Vulnerability Data
Multiple heap-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities exist in the fstReaderIterBlocks2 VCDATA parsing functionality of GTKWave 3.3.115. A specially-crafted .fst file can lead to arbitrary code execution. A victim would need to open a malicious file to trigger these vulnerabilities.This vulnerability concerns…
more
the decompression function `LZ4_decompress_safe_partial`.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Secure engineering principles require memory-safe design and coding that structurally avoids buffer-boundary violations.
Input validation directly enforces bounds checking that stops out-of-bounds reads/writes from being introduced or reached.
Memory protection restricts exploitation impact of buffer overflows without eliminating the underlying coding flaw.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many buffer overruns from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. flaws in non-software components, incomplete enforcement of guidelines, or post-deployment changes)
Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (e.g. least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening) plus design reviews that can catch and stop buffer-boundary errors before they reach code, but this is only one minority slice of CWE-119's broad surface (language-specific flaws, unsafe library use, compiler/runtime mitigations, and post-deployment instances remain outside its direct scope).
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.
Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.