Editing Pointer swizzling (section)

==Potential security weaknesses==
For security, unswizzling and swizzling must be implemented with great caution. In particular, an attacker's presentation of a specially crafted file may allow access to addresses outside of the expected and proper bounds. In systems with weak memory protection this can lead to exposure of confidential data or modification of code likely to be executed. If the system does not implement guards against execution of data the system may be severely compromised by the installation of various kinds of [[malware]].

Methods of protection include verifications prior to releasing the data to an application:
* That every offset lies within the bounds of the data read.
* That a table of indexes and the records pointed to is similarly constrained.
* That identifiers are unique and, if sensitive, encrypted.
* That all variable-length data is restrained to lengths not exceeding the actual allocation.
* That allocations are of reasonable size.
* That allocations made that are not loaded with data read are cleared, or loaded with some specific pattern.
{{Expand list|date=August 2011}}