Early Access — Mondoo Vulnerability Intelligence is currently in preview.
The product dereferences a pointer that contains a location for memory that was previously valid, but is no longer valid.
When a product releases memory, but it maintains a pointer to that memory, then the memory might be re-allocated at a later time. If the original pointer is accessed to read or write data, then this could cause the product to read or modify data that is in use by a different function or process. Depending on how the newly-allocated memory is used, this could lead to a denial of service, information exposure, or code execution.
Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
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.
If the expired pointer is used in a read operation, an attacker might be able to control data read in by the application.
If the expired pointer references a memory location that is not accessible to the product, or points to a location that is "malformed" (such as NULL) or larger than expected by a read or write operation, then a crash may occur.
If the expired pointer is used in a function call, or points to unexpected data in a write operation, then code execution may be possible.
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
Use tools that are integrated during compilation to insert runtime error-checking mechanisms related to memory safety errors, such as AddressSanitizer (ASan) for C/C++ [REF-1518].
CVE-2023-26463Chain: IPSec VPN product uses the same variable for multiple purposes in the same function (CWE-1109), leading to incorrect access control (CWE-284) and expired pointer dereference (CWE-825)
CVE-2008-5013access of expired memory address leads to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2010-3257stale pointer issue leads to denial of service and possibly other consequences
CVE-2008-0062Chain: a message having an unknown message type may cause a reference to uninitialized memory resulting in a null pointer dereference (CWE-476) or dangling pointer (CWE-825), possibly crashing the system or causing heap corruption.
CVE-2007-1211read of value at an offset into a structure after the offset is no longer valid