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Improper input validation [1] or unchecked user input is a type of vulnerability in computer software that may be used for security exploits. [2] This vulnerability is caused when "[t]he product does not validate or incorrectly validates input that can affect the control flow or data flow of a program." [1] Examples include: Buffer overflow
A code sanitizer is a programming tool that detects bugs in the form of undefined or suspicious behavior by a compiler inserting instrumentation code at runtime. The class of tools was first introduced by Google's AddressSanitizer (or ASan) of 2012, which uses directly mapped shadow memory to detect memory corruption such as buffer overflows or accesses to a dangling pointer (use-after-free).
Translation validation can be used even with a compiler that sometimes generates incorrect code, as long as this incorrect does not manifest itself for a given program. Depending on the input program the translation validation can fail (because the generated code is wrong or the translation validation technique is too weak to show correctness).
Example 1: legacy code may have been designed for ASCII input but now the input is UTF-8. Example 2 : legacy code may have been compiled and tested on 32-bit architectures, but when compiled on 64-bit architectures, new arithmetic problems may occur (e.g., invalid signedness tests, invalid type casts, etc.).
A software code audit is a comprehensive analysis of source code in a programming project with the intent of discovering bugs, security breaches or violations of programming conventions. It is an integral part of the defensive programming paradigm, which attempts to reduce errors before the software is released.
Code injection is a computer security exploit where a program fails to correctly process external data, such as user input, causing it to interpret the data as executable commands. An attacker using this method "injects" code into the program while it is running.
To remedy input kludges, one may use input validation algorithms to handle user input. A monkey test can be used to detect an input kludge problem. A common first test to discover this problem is to roll one's hand across the computer keyboard or to 'mash' the keyboard to produce a large junk input, but such an action often lacks reproducibility.
A directory traversal (or path traversal) attack exploits insufficient security validation or sanitization of user-supplied file names, such that characters representing "traverse to parent directory" are passed through to the operating system's file system API. An affected application can be exploited to gain unauthorized access to the file system