INT07-A. Explicitly specify signed or unsigned for character types

The three types char, signed char, and unsigned char are collectively called the character types. Compilers have the latitude to define char to have the same range, representation, and behavior as either signed char or unsigned char. Irrespective of the choice made, char is a separate type from the other two and is not compatible with either.

Non-Compliant Code Example

This non-compliant code example is taken from an actual vulnerability in bash versions 1.14.6 and earlier that resulted in the release of CERT Advisory CA-1996-22. This vulnerability resulted from the declaration of the string variable in the yy_string_get() function as char * in the parse.y module of the bash source code:

static int yy_string_get() {
  register char *string;
  register int c;

  string = bash_input.location.string;
  c = EOF;

  /* If the string doesn't exist, or is empty, EOF found. */
  if (string && *string) {
      c = *string++;
      bash_input.location.string = string;
    }
  return (c);
}

The string variable is used to traverse the character string containing the command line to be parsed. As characters are retrieved from this pointer, they are stored in a variable of type int. For compilers in which the char type defaults to signed char, this value is sign-extended when assigned to the int variable. For character code 255 decimal (-1 in two's complement form), this sign extension results in the value -1 being assigned to the integer which is indistinguishable from the EOF integer constant expression.

Compliant Solution

This problem is easily repaired by explicitly declaring the string variable as unsigned char.

static int yy_string_get() {
  register unsigned char *string;
  register int c;

  string = bash_input.location.string;
  c = EOF;

  /* If the string doesn't exist, or is empty, EOF found. */
  if (string && *string) {
      c = *string++;
      bash_input.location.string = string;
    }
  return (c);
}

Risk Assessment

This is a subtle error that results in a disturbingly broad range of potentially severe vulnerabilitiles.

References

[[ISO/IEC 9899-1999]] Section 6.2.5, "Types"