CWE-772: Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime
Learn about CWE-772 (Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime?
• Overview: Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime (CWE-772) occurs when a software application fails to release resources like memory or file handles after they are no longer needed, potentially leading to resource exhaustion.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by repeatedly triggering the allocation of resources without allowing the application to release them.
- Common attack patterns include forcing the application to handle excessive requests or inputs, leading to resource leaks that result in denial of service.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include denial of service, where the application becomes slow or unresponsive due to resource depletion.
- Potential cascading effects include system crashes or degraded performance of other applications sharing the same resources.
- Business impact may involve loss of availability, decreased productivity, and potential financial losses due to downtime.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes include ensuring that all resources are properly released after use, such as closing files, freeing memory, or terminating processes.
- Security best practices involve implementing resource management patterns like RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization) or using finally blocks in exception handling to guarantee resource release.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include static analysis tools to detect resource leaks and memory management libraries or frameworks that manage resource lifecycles automatically.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit:
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Mobile