Use of Out-of-range Pointer Offset

Pointers are designed to reference memory, but software logic typically expects them to operate within specific boundaries, like an array's allocated space. When an offset—often from user input, a miscalculation, or corrupted data—pushes the pointer beyond these boundaries, it can read or write to arbitrary, unintended memory locations. An attacker who controls this offset can exploit this to leak sensitive data, corrupt critical program variables, crash the application, or potentially execute malicious code. The core issue is a failure to properly validate that the pointer arithmetic result remains within the legitimate range of the target data structure before it is used.