AD2045: EnableUBSanPE¶

Summary¶

Property	Value
ID	AD2045
Name	EnableUBSanPE
Category	Security
Severity	Note
Applies to	PE (Windows)

Description¶

PE binaries used for testing should consider enabling UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSAN) to detect undefined behavior that can lead to security vulnerabilities.

Note: This is an informational rule. UBSAN is typically used in testing, not production.

How It Works¶

The rule checks for UBSAN runtime symbols:

__ubsan_handle_* functions
UBSAN runtime library linkage
Type sanitizer metadata

Why This Matters¶

Undefined behavior in C/C++ can be exploited by attackers. UBSAN helps detect these issues before they become vulnerabilities.

What UBSAN Detects¶

Issue	Security Impact
Signed overflow	Incorrect calculations, exploitable
Null dereference	Crashes, potential code execution
Divide by zero	Denial of service
Invalid shifts	Incorrect bitwise operations
Type mismatch	Memory corruption

Undefined Behavior Examples¶

// Signed integer overflow (undefined!)
int overflow(int a, int b) {
    return a + b;  // What if result > INT_MAX?
}

// UBSAN catches this at runtime:
// runtime error: signed integer overflow: 2147483647 + 1

UBSAN Checks¶

Check	Flag
Integer overflow	`-fsanitize=signed-integer-overflow`
Null pointer	`-fsanitize=null`
Alignment	`-fsanitize=alignment`
All UB	`-fsanitize=undefined`

Compiler Support¶

Compiler	UBSAN Support
Clang	Full
GCC	Full
MSVC	Limited (/RTCc)

Resolution¶

Enable UBSAN in test builds:

# Clang
clang -fsanitize=undefined -g program.c

# GCC
gcc -fsanitize=undefined -g program.c

CMake Configuration¶

if(ENABLE_SANITIZERS)
    add_compile_options(-fsanitize=undefined)
    add_link_options(-fsanitize=undefined)
endif()