SFP Secondary Cluster: Faulty Pointer Use

A category in the Common Weakness Enumeration published by The MITRE Corporation.


Summary

Categories in the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) group entries based on some common characteristic or attribute.

This category identifies Software Fault Patterns (SFPs) within the Faulty Pointer Use cluster (SFP7).

Weaknesses

Attempt to Access Child of a Non-structure Pointer

Casting a non-structure type to a structure type and accessing a field can lead to memory access errors or data corruption.

NULL Pointer Dereference

A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.

Use of Pointer Subtraction to Determine Size

The product subtracts one pointer from another in order to determine size, but this calculation can be incorrect if the pointers do not exist in the same memory chunk.

Concepts

Software Fault Pattern (SFP) Clusters

CWE identifiers in this view are associated with clusters of Software Fault Patterns (SFPs).


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