Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-762

Allowed

Mismatched Memory Management Routines

Abstraction: Variant · Status: Incomplete

API response cwe.mitre.org

The product attempts to return a memory resource to the system, but it calls a release function that is not compatible with the function that was originally used to allocate that resource.

11 vulnerabilities reference this CWE, most recent first.

CVE-2023-3648 (GCVE-0-2023-3648)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2023-07-14 06:16 – Updated: 2025-11-03 21:48
VLAI
Title
Mismatched Memory Management Routines in Wireshark
Summary
Kafka dissector crash in Wireshark 4.0.0 to 4.0.6 and 3.6.0 to 3.6.14 allows denial of service via packet injection or crafted capture file
Severity
5.3 (Medium)
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
SSVC
Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2024-10-23 14:06 UTC
CWE
  • CWE-762 - Mismatched Memory Management Routines
Assigner
GitLab CNA
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Wireshark Foundation Wireshark Affected: 4.0.0 , < 4.0.7 (custom)
Affected: 3.6.0 , < 3.6.15 (custom)
Create a notification for this product.
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Mitigation
Implementation

Only call matching memory management functions. Do not mix and match routines. For example, when you allocate a buffer with malloc(), dispose of the original pointer with free().

Mitigation MIT-41
Implementation

Strategy: Libraries or Frameworks

  • Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
  • For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
  • When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
  • To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.
Mitigation MIT-4.6
Architecture and Design

Strategy: Libraries or Frameworks

  • Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
  • For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
Mitigation
Architecture and Design

Use a language that provides abstractions for memory allocation and deallocation.

No CAPEC attack patterns related to this CWE.

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