Buffer overflow in Bochs before 2.1.1, if installed setuid, allows local users to execute arbitrary code via a long HOME environment variable, which is used if the .bochsrc, bochsrc, and bochsrc.txt cannot be found in a known path. NOTE: some external documents recommend that Bochs be installed setuid root, so this should be treated as a vulnerability.

Bochs 2.6-5 contains a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability that allows attackers to execute arbitrary code by supplying an oversized input string to the application. Attackers can craft a malicious payload with 1200 bytes of padding followed by a return-oriented programming chain to overwrite the instruction pointer and execute shell commands with application privileges.