CWE-463—Deletion of Data Structure Sentinel

Weakness Name

Deletion of Data Structure Sentinel

Description

The accidental deletion of a data-structure sentinel can cause serious programming logic problems.

Often times data-structure sentinels are used to mark structure of the data structure. A common example of this is the null character at the end of strings. Another common example is linked lists which may contain a sentinel to mark the end of the list. It is dangerous to allow this type of control data to be easily accessible. Therefore, it is important to protect from the deletion or modification outside of some wrapper interface which provides safety.

Common Consequences

Scope:

Availability, Other

Impact:

Other

Notes:

Generally this error will cause the data structure to not work properly.

Scope:

Authorization, Other

Impact:

Other

Notes:

If a control character, such as NULL is removed, one may cause resource access control problems.

Related Weaknesses

• CWE-464Addition of Data Structure SentinelHigh
• CWE-707Improper Neutralization