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CodeSonar® 9.2p0 CONFIDENTIAL CodeSecure Inc
C and C++
Binaries


IO.TAINT.ENV : Tainted Environment Variable

Summary

A value that may have network taint is used to set an environment variable.

Properties

Class Name Tainted Environment Variable
Significance security
Mnemonic IO.TAINT.ENV
Categories
MisraC2025 MisraC2025:D.4.14 The validity of values received from external sources shall be checked
MisraC2023 MisraC2023:D.4.14 The validity of values received from external sources shall be checked
Misra2012 Misra2012:D.4.14 The validity of values received from external sources shall be checked
AUTOSARC++14 AUTOSARC++14:A27-0-1 Inputs from independent components shall be validated.
MisraC++2023 MisraC++2023:0.3.2 A function call shall not violate the function's preconditions
CWE CWE:427 Uncontrolled Search Path Element
OWASP-2017 OWASP-2017:A1 Injection
OWASP-2021 OWASP-2021:A3 Injection
  OWASP-2021:A8 Software and data integrity failures
OWASP-2025 OWASP-2025:A05 Injection
  OWASP-2025:A08 Software or Data Integrity Failures
Availability Available for C and C++.
Enabling Checks for this warning class are enabled by default. To disable them, add the following WARNING_FILTER rule to the project configuration file.
WARNING_FILTER += discard class="Tainted Environment Variable"

Example

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

int io_taint_env(int sock){
    char val[16];

    if (recv(sock, val, 16, 0) <= 0 ) return -1;
    return putenv(val); /* 'Tainted Environment Variable' warning issued here */
}

Triggers

CodeSonar ships with library models that allow it to recognize functions such as libc setenv() and Win32 _putenv() that use one or more of their parameters to set an environment variable. If one of these functions is called with a potentially-network-tainted value in the variable name or value parameter position, a warning will be issued.

If you have created a custom library model for some function f() in terms of one of these existing models, calls to f() will also be capable of triggering Tainted Environment Variable warnings.

Relevant Configuration File Parameters

The following configuration file parameters affect checks for this warning class.

 

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