Skip to content
OpenAdvisories

Weakness (CWE)

CWE-761: Free of Pointer not at Start of Buffer

Variant Incomplete

The product calls free() on a pointer to a memory resource that was allocated on the heap, but the pointer is not at the start of the buffer.

How to prevent it (4 mitigations)

  1. Implementation

    When utilizing pointer arithmetic to traverse a buffer, use a separate variable to track progress through memory and preserve the originally allocated address for later freeing.

  2. Implementation

    When programming in C++, consider using smart pointers provided by the boost library to help correctly and consistently manage memory.

  3. Architecture and Design

    Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.

    For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.

  4. Architecture and Design

    Use a language that provides abstractions for memory allocation and deallocation.

Source: MITRE CWE-761

All Critical High Medium Low Exploited only Public exploit

2 results · Feed