This attack pattern involves causing a buffer overflow through manipulation of environment variables. Once the attacker finds that they can modify an environment variable, they may try to overflow associated buffers. This attack leverages implicit trust often placed in environment variables.

Generally these are manually edited files that are not in the preview of the system administrators, any ability on the attackers' behalf to modify these files, for example in a CVS repository, gives unauthorized access directly to the application, the same as authorized users.

An adversary exploits weaknesses in input validation by manipulating resource identifiers enabling the unintended modification or specification of a resource.