CWE-416
Use After Free
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Mitigation
Phase: Architecture and Design
Strategy: Language Selection
Description:
- Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
Mitigation
Phase: Implementation
Strategy: Attack Surface Reduction
Description:
- When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
No CAPEC attack patterns related to this CWE.