CVE-2024-20402

Security engineering principles require bounds checking, safe arithmetic, and language choices that structurally eliminate post-end buffer accesses.

Input validation enforces bounds on lengths and indices before buffer operations, stopping out-of-bounds accesses after the end of the buffer.

Memory protection mechanisms limit the effects of post-end buffer accesses by blocking unauthorized code execution or data corruption.

Secure SDLC practices directly require bounds checking and input validation that prevent out-of-bounds buffer accesses.

A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, checkpoints, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many out-of-bounds accesses from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. defects that slip past imperfect testing, non-software systems, or outsourced development without full assurance).

A.8.26 explicitly lists resilience against buffer overflow (and SQLi) as one of the application security requirements to identify/address during development or acquisition; well-implemented, this reaches a minority slice of CWE-788 instances (those caught in requirements/risk assessment) but leaves most implementation-level buffer errors untouched.

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (defense-in-depth, least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening, zero-trust verification) plus design reviews against known attack patterns, which can stop buffer overruns from being exploitable in many cases but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. unsafe legacy code, unsafe third-party libraries, or implementation errors that slip past reviews).

Secure coding standards directly forbid writing or reading past buffer ends.

Security testing in development can detect buffer-overrun defects before release.