CWE-401 - Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
CWE-401 Medium
- Abstraction:
- Variant
- Structure:
- Simple
- Status:
- Draft
- Weakness Name
Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
- Description
The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory.
This is often triggered by improper handling of malformed data or unexpectedly interrupted sessions. In some languages, developers are responsible for tracking memory allocation and releasing the memory. If there are no more pointers or references to the memory, then it can no longer be tracked and identified for release.
- Common Consequences
Scope: Availability
Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart, DoS: Instability, DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)
Notes: Most memory leaks result in general product 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 or hanging the program) or take advantage of other unexpected program behavior resulting from a low memory condition.
Scope: Other
Impact: Reduce Performance
- Related Weaknesses
- Release Date:
- 2006-07-19
- Latest Modification Date:
- 2023-06-29
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