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Description
Casting a non-structure type to a structure type and accessing a field can lead to memory access errors or data corruption.
Modes of Introduction:
– Architecture and Design
Related Weaknesses
Consequences
Integrity: Modify Memory
Adjacent variables in memory may be corrupted by assignments performed on fields after the cast.
Availability: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
Execution may end due to a memory access error.
Potential Mitigations
Phase: Requirements
Description:
The choice could be made to use a language that is not susceptible to these issues.
Phase: Implementation
Description:
Review of type casting operations can identify locations where incompatible types are cast.