CVE-2023-52168: 
7-Zip vulnerability analysis and mitigation

The NtfsHandler.cpp NTFS handler in 7-Zip before 24.01 (for 7zz) contains a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-52168. The vulnerability affects the 'full' implementation (7zz and its library) that includes the NTFS parser, while implementations not using the NTFS parser (e.g., 7za and 7zr) are unaffected. The vulnerability was discovered on August 18, 2023, and was silently fixed in version 24.01 (beta) released on January 31, 2024 (DFIR Blog, OSS Security).

The vulnerability allows an attacker to overwrite two bytes at multiple offsets beyond the allocated buffer size: buffer+512*i-2, for i=9, i=10, i=11, etc. The issue stems from improper validation of the update sequence array elements in the NTFS handler. The vulnerability occurs when processing file system structures, where the code uses data from disk (which is attacker-controlled) to validate the number of update sequence array elements without proper boundary checks (DFIR Blog).

The vulnerability's impact is considered limited as it would be very hard to exploit to gain code execution. The buffer overflow allows for overwriting two bytes at specific offsets beyond the allocated buffer size, but the practical exploitation potential remains constrained (OSS Security).

The vulnerability has been fixed in 7-Zip version 24.01 (beta). Users should upgrade to this version or later to mitigate the vulnerability. The fix includes proper validation of the MftRecordSizeLog variable and improved boundary checks (DFIR Blog).

The vulnerability disclosure process was notably quiet, with the 7-Zip author, Igor Pavlov, choosing not to provide an advisory or related change log entries, citing concerns about increasing the risks for possible attacks. The fix was implemented silently in the 24.01 beta release (DFIR Blog).