Description

Portable Puzzle Collection before 20230116.5782e29 was discovered to contain a buffer overflow which is triggered when an unusually long move is executed.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "2.9",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-14T05:16:56.140Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-14T05:16:56.140Z",
  "executiveSummary": "The Portable Puzzle Collection contains a memory corruption vulnerability categorized as a buffer overflow, affecting versions prior to 20230116.5782e29. This flaw exists within the input processing logic responsible for handling game moves. A remote or local attacker can trigger this vulnerability by supplying a specifically crafted, unusually long move sequence that exceeds the allocated buffer size. Successful exploitation leads to uncontrolled memory writes, which may result in application crashes, denial of service, or potentially arbitrary code execution depending on the state of the stack or heap at the time of the overwrite. Given the nature of the software, the primary risk involves the compromise of user-supplied data streams. No specific authentication is required to interact with the input parser, making the flaw accessible to any context capable of submitting moves to the game engine. Users are at risk if they process malicious puzzle input or save files from untrusted sources.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides within the move processing function of the Portable Puzzle Collection, where incoming move strings are ingested and parsed without sufficient boundary checking. When a user submits an excessively long string representing a game move, the application attempts to copy this data into a fixed-size stack or heap-allocated buffer. Due to the absence of length validation or bounds enforcement, the operation results in a classic buffer overflow condition, overwriting adjacent memory regions.\nThe attack flow initiates when the application logic receives a move input that deviates from expected length constraints. As the input is processed, the underlying C-style memory copy operation proceeds beyond the intended memory block. If the overflow target resides on the stack, an attacker may overwrite the instruction pointer (EIP/RIP) or saved frame pointers, potentially redirecting the program execution flow to malicious shellcode or leveraging Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) gadgets. If the overflow affects heap structures, the attacker might corrupt metadata, leading to exploitation of heap management routines.\nThe vulnerable component is the input parsing routine that fails to verify the size of the move string against the target destination buffer's capacity. Because the Portable Puzzle Collection processes input synchronously during move validation, the flaw is triggered immediately upon the execution of the malformed move. This does not require complex authentication or elevated privileges, as the vulnerability is inherent to the parsing logic of the game engine itself. The memory corruption is effectively deterministic, as the overflow is triggered by the size of the input string provided by the attacker.\nPost-exploitation impact ranges from an application-level denial of service (DoS), causing the puzzle collection process to terminate abruptly, to remote code execution (RCE) in the context of the user running the application. The severity is magnified if the application is integrated into environments where automated solvers or networked puzzle interfaces are utilized, as this expands the potential attack surface for external input injection. The flaw persists in all versions of the software released prior to the 20230116.5782e29 commit, representing a significant risk to the integrity of the process memory space."
}