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Application & OT Security · Advanced

AddressSanitizer (ASan)

A compiler-based runtime memory error detector that finds buffer overflows, use-after-free and similar bugs during testing.

Definition

ASan, available in Clang and GCC, instruments memory accesses and reports the exact location of errors. It is used with unit tests and fuzzing; related sanitizers include UBSan (undefined behavior), MSan (uninitialized memory) and TSan (data races).

Example

Compiling with -fsanitize=address makes a fuzzer report a heap-buffer-overflow that would otherwise not crash.

Exam tip

Sanitizers make silent memory corruption visible during testing.

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