AD3038: EnableUBSan¶

Summary¶

Property	Value
ID	AD3038
Name	EnableUBSan
Category	Security
Severity	Note
Applies to	ELF (Linux/Unix)

Description¶

ELF 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
Sanitizer metadata sections

Why This Matters¶

Undefined behavior in C/C++ is a major source of security vulnerabilities. UBSAN detects these issues at runtime.

What UBSAN Detects¶

Issue	Security Impact
Signed integer overflow	Exploitable calculations
Null pointer dereference	Crashes, potential RCE
Division by zero	Denial of service
Invalid shift amounts	Incorrect bit operations
Out-of-bounds array access	Memory corruption
Type mismatch	Undefined casts

UBSAN Checks¶

# All undefined behavior
-fsanitize=undefined

# Specific checks
-fsanitize=signed-integer-overflow
-fsanitize=null
-fsanitize=bounds
-fsanitize=alignment

Example Detection¶

int arr[10];
arr[15] = 42;  // Undefined behavior

// UBSAN output:
// runtime error: index 15 out of bounds for type 'int [10]'

Performance¶

Mode	Overhead
Full UBSAN	10-100%
Integer only	5-20%
Null checks	<5%

Resolution¶

Enable UBSAN in test builds:

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

CMake Configuration¶

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