Divide By Zero

The product divides a value by zero.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product divides a value by zero.

Extended description

This weakness typically occurs when an unexpected value is provided to the product, or if an error occurs that is not properly detected. It frequently occurs in calculations involving physical dimensions such as size, length, width, and height.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

Affected security scopes: Availability

A Divide by Zero results in a crash.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Follow secure coding guidelines for input handling and boundary checking.
Enforce strict security reviews and automated static analysis (SAST) checks.

Verification

How is it detected?

Automated Static Analysis

High

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)

Fuzzing

High

Fuzz testing (fuzzing) is a powerful technique for generating large numbers of diverse inputs - either randomly or algorithmically - and dynamically invoking the code with those inputs. Even with random inputs, it is often capable of generating unexpected results such as crashes, memory corruption, or resource consumption. Fuzzing effectively produces repeatable test cases that clearly indicate bugs, which helps developers to diagnose the issues.