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Dangling Pointer

A pointer or reference to memory that has already been freed or whose stack frame has returned. Dereferencing one is undefined behavior and the root of use-after-free exploits.

Questions this Concept answers

Why is following a dangling pointer often worse than crashing on the spot?

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Privilege Escalation via Use-After-Free Dangling Pointers in Memory Safety

A dangling pointer is a pointer that still references memory after that memory has been freed; a use-after-free vulnerability arises when a program dereferences such a pointer, allowing an attacker w…