Author: René Pfeiffer Page 1 of 3

René Pfeiffer has a background in system administration, software development, physics, and teaching. He writes on this blog about all things code and code security.

Researching Code Examples for Secure Coding

By René Pfeiffer

On February 13, 2025

In Development, Teaching

The image shows shredded paper strips from a shredded document. Source: http://securology.blogspot.com/2012/09/destroying-paper-documents.html Learning by doing means you spent a lot of time with reading documentation and exploring example code that illustrates the features of your favourite development toolchain. Getting a well-written example code has become substantially more difficult in the past years. Once upon a time, Google offered a search engine just for source code. It was active between 2006 and 2012. Now you are stuck with search engines and their deteriorating quality. The amount of AI-generated content, copy-&-paste from documentation, and hyperlinks to gigantic forum discussions filled with errors and even more copy-&-paste snippets destroys the classical Internet research. You have to select your sources carefully. So what is a good strategy here? I have compiled a short checklist that enables you to avoid wasting time.

Start with the tutorials and documentation of your development tools/languages. Some have sections with examples and a well-written explanation. It depends on the developers, because writing didactically valuable explanations takes some effort.
Actively look for content from schools, colleges, or universities. Sometimes courses are online and contain the information you need. Try to prefer this source category.
When using search engines, keep the following in mind:
- Skip results pushed by Search Engine Optimization (SEO); SEO is basically a way to push results to the top by adding noise and following the search engine company’s policy of the day. You can recognise this content by summary texts that don’t tell you the facts in briefs, the obnoxious Top N phrase in the title, and even more variations of copy-&-paste text fragments.
- Do not „AI-enhance“ the results! While Large Language Model (LLM) algorithms may have used actual sources relevant to your research during training, their results are merely a statistical remix subtly altered by hallucinations. Go directly to software/coding forums and look for relevant threads. LLM-generated code will contain more bugs or bugs more frequently.
- Do not use content sponsored by companies pushing their development products. Research is all about good examples, good explanations, and facts, not marketing.
- Mind the date of the results. AI spammers and companies following the AI hype have changed dates of published articles to sell them as new or updated. Don’t fall for that.
Inspect secure coding standards and policy documents. Some contain useful sections with examples. You can also verify the search results with this by recognising outdated advice (deprecated algorithms, old standards, etc.).
Inspect version control repositories and look for example code. A lot of projects have samples and test code that is part of the release.
Write your own test code and explore! Add the created test code to your personal/project toolbox. You can later turn this code into unit tests or use it to check if major version changes broke something.

Unfortunately, these hints won’t change the degrading quality of the current search engines. It will help you filter out the noise.

Filtering Unicode Strings in C++

By René Pfeiffer

On January 3, 2025

In C/C++, Development, Secure Coding

The image shows a screenshot of the "iconv -l" command. It shows all character encodings that the iconv tool can convert. Dealing with text is a major task for code. Writing text means to string characters in a row. Characters are the symbols. The encoding determines how these characters are represented in memory. There are single-byte and multi-byte encodings. The Unicode family aims to represent all characters and symbols of all writing systems. If you specify Unicode, you still need to select a specific encoding. Unicode can be expressed in UCS-2, UCS-2BE, UCS-2LE, UCS-4, UCS-4BE, UCS-4LE, UTF-7-IMAP, UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16BE, UTF-16LE, UTF-32, UTF-32BE, and UTF-32LE. The numbers indicate the bytes and bits. The LE and BE indicate the endianness of the encoding. So if you see a software specification saying „let’s use Unicode“, then this is not a specification. Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) is an early representation of Unicode, but it is still updated by the Unicode group.

C++ has multiple string classes. The string container follows the C behaviour and has no encoding per se. You can store byte sequences in a string. You have to take care of the encoding. Wide strings can be stored in the wstring container. Wide strings can accommodate multi-byte characters as used in UTF-16 or UTF-32. The disadvantage is that this differs between platforms (just as the int data type). C++11 and C++20 introduced the u8string, u16string, and u32string containers to address this. You still need to track the encoding of the data. A good choice is to stick with the standard string container and handle the encoding issues yourself. However, the C++ standard library lacks some functionality that is frequently needed. The following libraries can help you out:

simdutf for Unicode validation and transformation; the library has SIMD support
pcrecpp for regular expressions with Unicode
UTF8-CPP for Unicode string operations with UTF-8 and conversions to UTF-16 / UTF-32

The native string encoding on Microsoft© Windows® is UTF-16LE. GNU/Linux® systems usually use UTF-8 as does the World Wide Web. Web servers can also serve UTF-16 content. Web standards do not allow UTF-32 for text content.

You must validate all strings entering your code. Both simdutf and UTF8-CPP have validation functions. You can store the text in the standard string container. Using Unicode adds a lot of extra characters and code that you need to track. For example, you get over two whitespaces in strings. Unicode has 25 characters with the whitespace property. Filtering is easiest with regular expressions. There are some caveats. The extended ASCII and ISO-8859 non-breaking space has the code 0xa0. Unicode has the code 0xc2 0xa0. Filtering may only remove the 0xa0, and this leaves you with an invalid code point 0xc2. The pcrecpp library will do this if you remove all Unicode whitespaces. It’s helpful to explore how Unicode encodes characters. Focus on the additional controls and modification characters, because they can also reverse the writing order (see Unicode bidirectional formatting characters for more information). The best way to avoid trouble is to use allow lists and remove everything else, if possible. Some special cases will require looking for byte sequences that never occur and markers for the two-, three-, and four-byte sequences (in UTF-8, other encoding also have markers for extended character sequences and modifiers).

Transformations will also be a frequent issue. The in-memory representation of the C++ string classes is independent of the representation on storage subsystems or the network. Make sure to handle this and all localization aspects. The language settings require extra conversions.

Parallel Operations on numerical Values

By René Pfeiffer

On October 29, 2024

In C/C++

Everyone knows the vector container of C++’s Standard Template Library (STL). It is useful, versatile, and store the data of all elements in a contiguous memory location. There is another container named std::valarray for array data that is not widely known. It is part of the STL for a long time (i.e. way before C++11). The use case is to perform operations on all array elements in parallel. You can even multiply two valarray containers element by element without using loops or other special code. While it has no iterators, you can easily create a valarray container from a vector, perform calculations in parallel, and push the results into a vector again. The C++ reference has example code to show how to do this. Creation from a vector requires access to the memory location of the vector’s data.

std::vector<double> values; // Put some values into the vector here … // Convert vector to valarray std::valarray<double> val_values( values.data(), values.size() );

Now you can perform operations on all elements at once. Calculating cos() of all elements simply looks like this:

auto val_result = cos(val_values);

If you take the time and compare it to a loop through a vector where the function is called for every element, then you notice valarray is much faster. It depends on your compiler. GCC and Clang are quite fast. The apply() member function allows you to run arbitrary functions on every element. If you only need a subset of the elements, then you can create slices with the required values.

Static Tests and Code Coverage

By René Pfeiffer

On September 17, 2024

In Development, Mathematics, Testing

Testing software and measuring the code coverage is a critical ritual for most software development teams. The more code lines you cover, the better the results. Right? Well, yes, and no. Testing is fine, but you should not get excited about maximising the code coverage. Measuring code coverage can turn into a game and a quest for the highest score. Applying statistics to computer science can show you how many code paths your tests need to cover. Imagine that you have a piece of code containing 32 if()/else() statements. Testing all branches means you will have to run through 4,294,967,296 different combinations. Now add some loops, function calls, and additional if() statements (because 32 comparisons are quite low for a sufficiently big code base). This will increase the paths considerably. Multiply the number by the time needed to complete a test run. This shows that tests are limited by physics and mathematics.

Static analysis is a standard tool which helps you detect bugs and problems in your code. Remember that all testing tries to determine the behaviour of your application. Mathematics has more bad news for you. Rice’s Theorem states that all non-trivial semantic properties of a specific code are undecidable. An undecidable problem, which is a decision problem, cannot be solved by any algorithm implementation. Rice published the theorem with a proof in 1951, and it relates to the halting problem. It implies that you cannot decide if an application is correct. You also cannot decide if the code executes without errors. The theorem sounds odd, because clearly you can run code and see if it shows any errors given a specific set of input data. This is a special case. Rice’s theorem is a generalisation and applies to all possible input data. So your successful tests basically work with special cases that do not cause harm. Security testing checks for dangerous behaviour or signs of weaknesses. Increasing the input data variations can cover more cases, but Rice’s theorem still holds, no matter how much effort you put into your testing pipeline.

Let’s get back to the code coverage metric. Of course, you should test all of your code. The major goal for your code is to handle errors correctly, fail safely (i.e. without creating damage), and keep control of the code execution. You can achive these goals with any code coverage per test above 0%. Don’t fall prey to gamification!

Mixing Secure Coding with Programming Lessons

By René Pfeiffer

On August 30, 2024

In Development, Security

Learning about programming first and then learning secure coding afterwards is a mistake. Even if you are new to a programming language or its concepts, you need to know what can go wrong. You need to know how to handle errors. You need to do some basic checks of data received, no matter what your toolchain looks like. This is part of the learning process. So instead of learning how to use code constructs or language features twice, take the shortcut and address security and understanding of the concepts at once. An example method of classes and their behaviour. If you think in instances, then you will have to deal with the occasional exception. No one would learn the methods first, ignore all error conditions, and then get back to learn about errors.

Another example are variables with numerical values. Numbers are notorious. Even the integer data types stay in the Top 25 CWE list since 2019. Integer overflow or underflow simply happens with the standard arithmetic operators. There is no fancy bug involved, just basic counting. You have to implement range checks. There is no way around this. Even Rust requires you to do extra bound checks by using the checked_add() methods. Secure coding always means more code, not less. This starts with basic data types and operators. You can add these logical pitfalls to exercises and examples. By using this approach, you can convey new techniques and how a mind in the security mindset improves the code. There is also the possibility of switching between “normal” exercises and security lessons with a focus on how things go wrong. It’s not helpful to pretend that code won’t run into bugs or security weaknesses. Put the examples of failure and how to deal with it right into your course from the start.

If you don’t know where to start, then consult the secure coding guidelines and top lists of well-known vulnerabilities. Here are some good pointers to get started:

The Ghost of Legacy Code and its Relation to Security

By René Pfeiffer

On August 19, 2024

In Development, Security

The words legacy and old carry a negative meaning when used with code or software development. Marketing has ingrained in us the belief that everything new is good and everything old should be replaced to ensure people spend money and time. Let me tell you that this is not the case, and that age is not always a suitable metric. Would you rather have your brain surgery from a surgeon with 20+ years of experience or a freshly graduated surgeon on his or her first day at the hospital?

So what is old code? In my dictionary, the label “not maintained anymore” is assigned to legacy and old code. This is where the mainstream definition fails. You can have legacy code which is still maintained. There is a sound reason for using code like this: stability and fewer errors introduced by creating code from scratch. Reimplementing code always means that you start from nothing. Computer science basic courses teach everyone to reuse code in order to avoid these situations. Basically, reusing code means that you allow code to age. Just don’t forget to maintain parts of your application that work and experience few changes. This is the sane version of old code. There is another one.

An old codebase can serve as a showstopper for changes. If you took some poor design decisions in the past, then parts of your code will resist fresh development and features. Prototypes often exhibit this behaviour (a prototype usually never sees the production phase unaltered). When you see this in your application, then it is time to think about refactoring. Refactoring has fewer restrictions if you can do this in your own code. Once components or your platform is part of the legacy code, then you are in for a major upgrade. Operating systems and run-time environments can push changes to your application by requiring a refactoring. Certifications can do the same. Certain environments only allow certified components. Your configuration becomes frozen once applications or run-time get the certification. All changes may require a re-certification. Voilà, here is your stasis, and your code ages.

Legacy code is not a burden per se. It all depends if the code is still subject to maintenance, patches, and security checks. Besides, older code usually has fewer bugs.

Code, Development, Agile, and the Waterfall – Dynamics

By René Pfeiffer

On August 16, 2024

In Development

Code requires a process to create it. The collection of processes, tasks, requirements, and checks is called software development. The big question is how to do it right. Frankly, the answer to this question does not exist. First, not all code is equal. A web server, a filesystem, a database, and a kernel module for network communication contain distinct code, with only a few functions that can be shared. For adding secure coding practices, some attendees of my courses question the application of checklists and cleaning of suspicious data. Security is old-fashioned, because you have to think of risks, how to address them, and how to improve sections of your code that connect to the outside world. People like to term agile where small teams bathe in outbursts of creativity and sprint to implementing requested features. You can achieve anything you set your mind to. Tear down code, write it new, deliver the features. This is not how secure coding works, and this is not how your software development process should look like (regardless what type of paradigm you follow).

It is easy to drift into a rant about the agile manifesto. Condensing the entire development process into 68 words, all done during three days of skiing in Colorado, is bound to create very general statements whose implementation wildly differs. This is not the point I want to make. You can shorten secure coding to 10 to 13 principles. The SEI CERT secure coding documents feature a list with the top 10 methods. It’s still incomplete, and you still have to actually integrate security into your writing-code-process. So you can interpret secure coding as a manifesto, too. Neglecting the implementation has advantages. You can use secure coding with all existing and future programming languages. You can use it on all platforms, also current and yet to be invented. The principles are always true. Secure coding is a model that you can use to improve how your team creates, tests, and deploys code. This also means that adopting a security stance requires you to alter your toolbox. All of us have a favourite development environment. This is the first place where you can get started with secure coding. It’s not all about having the right plugins, but it is important to see what code does while it is being developed.

The title features the words agile and waterfall. Please do yourself a favour and stop thinking about buzzwords. It doesn’t matter how your development process produces code. It matters that the code has next to none security vulnerabilities, shows no undefined behaviour and cannot be abused by third parties. Secure code is possible with any development process provided you follow the principles. Use the principle’s freedoms to your advantage and integrate what works best.

CrowdStrike and how not to write OS Drivers

By René Pfeiffer

On July 20, 2024

In C/C++, Infrastructure, Testing

Yesterday the CrowdStrike update disable thousands of servers and clients all across the world. The affected systems crashed when booting. A first analysis by Zach Vorhies (careful, the link goes to the right-wing social media network X) has some not very surprising news about the cause of the problem. Apparently, the system driver from CrowdStrike hit a null pointer access violation. Of course, people immediately started bashing C++, but this is too shallow. There are different layers where code is executed. The user space is usually a safe ground where you can use standard techniques of catching errors. Even a crash might be safer for user space applications than continuing and doing more harm. Once your code runs as a system driver, then you are part of the operating system and have to observe a couple of constraints. OS code can’t just exit or crash (even exception without the catch{} code count as a crash). So having a null situation in mission-critical code is something which should never happen. This should have been caught in the testing phase. Furthermore, Modern C++ has no use for null pointers. You must use smart pointers, and by doing that, you don’t need to handle null pointers. There is nothing more to it.

You cannot ignore certain error conditions when running within the operating system. Memory allocation, I/O errors, and everything concerning memory operations is critical. There must be checks in place, and there is no excuse for omitting these checks.

Finding 0-Days with Large Language Models exclusive-or Fuzzing

By René Pfeiffer

On June 17, 2024

In Secure Coding, Testing

If all you have is a Large Language Model (LLM), then you will apply it to all of your problems. People are now trying to find 0-days with the might of LLMs. While there is no surprise that this works, there is a better way of pushing your code to the limit. Just use random data! Someone coined the term fuzzing in 1988. People have been using defective punch cards as input for a while longer. With input filtering of data, you want to eliminate as much bias as possible. This is exactly why people create the input data using random data. Human testers think too much, too less, or are too constrained. (Pseudo-)Random number generators rarely have a bias. LLMs do. This means that the publication about finding 0-days by using LLMs should not be good news. Just like human Markov chains, LLMs only „look“ in a specific direction when creating input data. The model is the slave of vectors and the training data. The process might use the source code as an „inspiration“, but so does a compiler with a fuzzing engine. Understanding that LLMs do not possess any cognitive capabilities is the key point here. You cannot ask an LLM what it thinks of the code in combination with certain input data. You are basically using a fancy data generator that uses more energy and is too complex for the task at hand.

Comparing LLMs with fuzzing engines does not work well. Both approaches serve an original purpose. Always remember that the input data in security tests should push your filters to the limit and create a situation that you did not expect. Randomness will do this much more efficiently than a more complex algorithm. If you are fond of complexity or have too much powerful hardware at your hands, there are other things you can do with this.

URL Validation, Unit Tests and the Lost Constructor

By René Pfeiffer

On May 27, 2024

In C/C++, Testing

I have some code that requests URLs, looks for session identifiers or tokens, extracts them, and calculates some indicators of randomness. The tool works, but I decided to add some unit tests in order to play with the Catch2 framework. Unit tests requires some easy to check conditions, so validating HTTP/HTTPS URLs sounds like a good idea to get started. The code uses the curl library for requests, so checking URLs can be done by libcurl or before feeding the URL string to it. Therefore I added some regular expressions. RFC 3986 has a very good description of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). The full regular expression is quite large and match too many variations of URI strings. You can inspect it on the regex101 web site. Shortening the regex to matching URLs beginning with “http” or “https” requires to define what you want to match. Should there be only domain names? Are IP addresses allowed? If so, what about IPv4 and IPv4? Experimenting with the filter variations took a bit of time. The problem was that no regex was matching the pattern. Even patterns that worked fine in other programming languages did not work in the unit test code. The error was hidden in a constructor.

Class definitions in C++ often have multiple variations of constructors. The web interface code can create a default instance where you set the target URL later by using setters. You can also create instances with parameters such as the target or the number of requests. The initialisation code sits in one member function which also initialises the libcurl data structures. So the constructors look like this:

http::http() { }

http::http( unsigned int nreq ) { init_data_structures(); set_max_requests( nreq ); return; }

The function init_data_structures() sets a flag that tells the instance if the libcurl subsystem is working or not. The first constructor does not call the function, so the flag is always false. The missing function call is hard to miss. The reason why the line was missing is that the code had a default constructor at first. The other constructors were added later, and the default constructor function was never used, because the test code never creates instances without an URL. This bring me back to the unit tests. The Catch2 framework does not need a full program code with a main() function. You can directly create instances in your test code snippets and use them. That’s why the error got noticed. Unit tests are not security tests. The missing initialisation function call is most probably not a security weakness, because the code does not run with the web request subsystem flag set to false. It’s still a good way to catch omissions or logic errors. So please do lots of unit tests all of the time.