CWE-826: Premature Release of Resource During Expected Lifetime
Learn about CWE-826 (Premature Release of Resource During Expected Lifetime), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Premature Release of Resource During Expected Lifetime?
• Overview: Premature Release of Resource During Expected Lifetime (CWE-826) occurs when a program releases a resource, such as memory or a file handle, too early, while it or another actor still intends to use it. This can lead to unexpected behavior, as the resource may be repurposed or invalidated.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by triggering operations on the prematurely released resource, potentially causing the program to crash or execute malicious code.
- Common attack patterns include manipulating the timing of resource access, inducing race conditions, or forcing the program to reuse the resource.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences of successful exploitation include denial of service, where the application crashes or becomes unresponsive.
- Potential cascading effects involve information leakage if sensitive data is accessed after the resource is repurposed.
- Business impact can range from minor service disruptions to major data breaches, depending on the resource involved.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes involve careful management of resource lifetimes, ensuring resources are only released when absolutely no longer needed.
- Security best practices include implementing robust resource management policies and conducting thorough code reviews to identify premature release patterns.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include static analysis tools that can detect resource management issues and runtime analysis for dynamic checking of resource use.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified