CS.SV.TAINTED.ALLOC_SIZE

Unvalidated input used in memory allocation

Whenever input is accepted from the user or the outside environment, it should be validated for type, length, format, and range before it is used. Until properly validated, the data is said to be tainted. The CS.SV.TAINTED family of checkers looks for the use of tainted data in code.

The CS.SV.TAINTED.ALLOC_SIZE checker flags code that uses tainted data in determining the size of a memory allocation.

Vulnerability and risk

When input to code isn't validated properly, an attacker can craft the input in a form that isn't expected by the application. The receipt of unintended input can result in altered control flow, arbitrary resource control, and arbitrary code execution. With this sort of opportunity, an attacker could

  • provide unexpected values and cause a program crash
  • cause excessive resource consumption
  • read confidential data
  • use malicious input to modify data or alter control flow
  • execute arbitrary commands

Allocating memory using integers supplied by the user can lead to excessive resource consumption. If the user passes an extremely large integer, the application will allocate an extremely large quantity of memory. This will result in the application consuming the system's memory and possibly bringing the system to a halt and triggering a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

Mitigation and prevention

To avoid tainted input errors:

  • understand all the potential areas in which untrusted inputs could enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, input read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, filenames, databases, and any external systems
  • use a whitelist or 'known good' policy for inputs, rather than relying only on a blacklist or 'known bad' strategy
  • make sure all relevant properties of the input are validated, including length, type of input, ranges, missing or extra inputs, syntax, and consistency
  • if there are security checks on the client side of an applications, make sure they're duplicated on the server side
  • if the application combines inputs from multiple sources, perform the validation after the sources have been combined

Vulnerable code example

Copy 
   namespace myNamespace
   {    
       class AllocateBuffer
       {
           public static void TryAllocateBuffer()
           {            
               int input_value = Console.Read();
               int[] integerArray = new int[input_value]; 
    }
      }
  }

In this code, input_value is copied from the user input via call to Console.Read() and used as an operand to operator new without validation. That can lead to excessive memory consumption via arbitrary large memory allocations. Klocwork reports this vulnerability as a CS.SV.TAINTED.ALLOC_SIZE defect.

Fixed code example

Copy 
   namespace myNamespace
   {    
       class AllocateBuffer
       {
           public static void TryAllocateBuffer()
           {            
               int input_value = Console.Read();
   
            // Validate input before using it in a memory allocation 
           if (input_value > 0 && input_value <= MAX_BUFFER_SIZE)
           {
                  int[] integerArray = new int[input_value]; 
           }
          }
      }
  }

In this example, the externally controlled data is used only after verification at line 10 and thus the code is no longer vulnerable to the arbitrary memory allocation attacks.

Related checkers

External guidance