Memory Leak - Revision history

KirstenS at 19:41, 11 April 2009

2009-04-11T19:41:25Z

KirstenS at 21:39, 7 March 2009

2009-03-07T21:39:08Z

KirstenS at 01:01, 27 January 2009

2009-01-27T01:01:14Z

KirstenS at 18:41, 26 September 2008

2008-09-26T18:41:25Z

Weilin Zhong at 17:08, 20 July 2006

2006-07-20T17:08:14Z

New page

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==Abstract==

Memory is allocated but never freed.

==Description==

Memory leaks have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

* Error conditions and other exceptional circumstances.
*Confusion over which part of the program is responsible for freeing the memory

Most memory leaks result in general software reliability problems, but if an attacker can intentionally trigger a memory leak, the attacker might be able to launch a denial of service attack (by crashing the program) or take advantage of other unexpected program behavior resulting from a low memory condition [1].

==Examples ==

The following C function leaks a block of allocated memory if the call to read() fails to return the expected number of bytes:

<pre>
char* getBlock(int fd) {
char* buf = (char*) malloc(BLOCK_SIZE);
if (!buf) {
return NULL;
}
if (read(fd, buf, BLOCK_SIZE) != BLOCK_SIZE) {
return NULL;
}
return buf;
}
</pre>

==Related Threats==

==Related Attacks==

[[:Category:Denial of Service Attack]]

==Related Vulnerabilities==

==Related Countermeasures==

==References==

[1] J. Whittaker and H. Thompson. How to Break Software Security. Addison Wesley, 2003.

==Categories==

[[Category:Code Quality Vulnerability]]

[[Category:C]]

[[Category:Implementation]]

[[Category:Code Snippet]]

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	[1] J. Whittaker and H. Thompson. How to Break Software Security. Addison Wesley, 2003.		[1] J. Whittaker and H. Thompson. How to Break Software Security. Addison Wesley, 2003.
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