CS.NRE.GEN.MIGHT

An object reference value from a local assignment of a null-constant, or from a call to a function that will return null, might be dereferenced either explicitly, or through a call to a function that will dereference it, without checking for null.

Vulnerability and risk

Dereferencing a null object reference is a critical runtime problem that will crash the application on some operating systems and throw a runtime exception on others.

Example 1

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                  public class A {
                      public void foo() {
                          A c = null;
                          if (flag)
                              c.foo();
                      }
  
                      private bool flag;
                  }

Null-source: explicit assignment Null-dereferencing: explicit Klocwork produces an issue report (CS.NRE.GEN.MIGHT) at line 3 for variable 'c'. If flag is greater than 0, 'c' will be dereferenced at line 5.

External guidance

• CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference

Security training

Application security training materials provided by Secure Code Warrior.

• Null Dereference Training Video - Test your skills with a training example