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The mismanagement of memory can lead to freeing memory multiple times or writing to already freed memory. Both of these coding errors can result in an attacker executing arbitrary code with the permissions of the vulnerable process. Memory management errors can also lead to resource depletion and denial-of-service attacks.

Recommendation	Severity	Likelihood	Remediation Cost	Priority	Level
MEM00-C	High	Probable	Medium	P12	L1

Automated Detection

Tool

Version

Checker

Description

CodeSonar

Include Page

	CodeSonar_V
	CodeSonar_V

ALLOC.DF
ALLOC.LEAK

Double free
Leak

Compass/ROSE

Could detect possible violations by reporting any function that has malloc() or free() but not both. This would catch some false positives, as there would be no way to tell if malloc() and free() are at the same level of abstraction if they are in different functions

Coverity 6.5 RESOURCE_LEAK Fully implemented

Klocwork

Include Page

	Klocwork_V
	Klocwork_V

FREE.INCONSISTENT
UFM.FFM.MIGHT
UFM.FFM.MUST
UFM.DEREF.MIGHT
UFM.DEREF.MUST
UFM.RETURN.MIGHT
UFM.RETURN.MUST
UFM.USE.MIGHT
UFM.USE.MUST
MLK.MIGHT
MLK.MUST
MLK.RET.MIGHT
MLK.RET.MUST
FNH.MIGHT
FNH.MUST
FUM.GEN.MIGHT
FUM.GEN.MUST
RH.LEAK

LDRA tool suite

Include Page

	LDRA_V
	LDRA_V

50 D

Partially implemented

Parasoft C/C++test

9.5MEM-18,MEM-19,MEM-20Fully implementedParasoft Insure++ Runtime analysis will detect all leaksPolyspace Bug FinderR2016a

Include Page

	Parasoft_V
	Parasoft_V

CERT_C-MEM00-a
CERT_C-MEM00-b
CERT_C-MEM00-c
CERT_C-MEM00-d
CERT_C-MEM00-e

Do not allocate memory and expect that someone else will deallocate it later
Do not allocate memory and expect that someone else will deallocate it later
Do not allocate memory and expect that someone else will deallocate it later
Do not use resources that have been freed
Ensure resources are freed

Parasoft Insure++

Runtime analysis

PC-lint Plus

Include Page

	PC-lint Plus_V
	PC-lint Plus_V

449, 2434

Partially supported

Polyspace Bug Finder

Include Page

	Polyspace Bug Finder_V
	Polyspace Bug Finder_V

CERT C: Rec. MEM00-C

Checks for:

Invalid free of pointer
Deallocation of previously deallocated pointer
Use of previously freed pointer

Pointer deallocation without a corresponding dynamic allocation

Memory freed more than once without allocation

Memory accessed after deallocation

Rec. partially covered.

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

Related Guidelines

SEI CERT C++ Coding Standard	VOID MEM11-CPP. Allocate and free memory in the same module, at the same level of abstraction
ISO/IEC TR 24772:2013	Memory Leak [XYL]
MITRE CWE	CWE-415, Double free CWE-416, Use after free