C Security Review

C/C++ Security Review

Overview

Comprehensive security review of C and C++ codebases using parallel static analysis workers. Identifies memory safety issues, undefined behavior, integer overflows, format string vulnerabilities, and other common C/C++ security bugs.

Trigger

Use this skill when asked to review C or C++ code for security vulnerabilities, memory safety issues, or to perform a security audit of a C/C++ codebase.

Workflow

1. Scope the Review

• Identify entry points and trust boundaries
• Map data flows from external input to sensitive operations
• List all external dependencies and third-party libraries

2. Memory Safety Analysis

• Buffer overflows (stack and heap)
• Use-after-free and double-free vulnerabilities
• Null pointer dereferences
• Uninitialized memory reads
• Out-of-bounds array accesses

3. Integer Vulnerabilities

• Integer overflow/underflow
• Signed/unsigned conversion bugs
• Off-by-one errors in loop bounds and buffer sizing
• Truncation when converting between int sizes

4. Format String Vulnerabilities

• Uncontrolled format strings in printf-family functions
• Logging functions that accept user-controlled format strings

5. Injection and Command Execution

• Command injection via system(), popen(), exec-family
• Path traversal vulnerabilities
• SQL injection in database-connected code

6. Cryptographic Issues

• Weak or deprecated algorithms (MD5, SHA1, DES)
• Hardcoded keys or IVs
• Insecure random number generation
• Improper certificate validation

7. Concurrency Bugs

• Race conditions and TOCTOU vulnerabilities
• Deadlocks and lock ordering issues
• Signal handler safety

8. Static Analysis Tools

Run the following tools and aggregate results:

• cppcheck --enable=all <path>
• clang --analyze <files>
• flawfinder <path>
• rats <path> (if available)
• Address Sanitizer (ASan) for runtime detection

9. Report Format

For each finding:

• Severity: Critical / High / Medium / Low / Informational
• CWE: Relevant CWE identifier
• Location: File:line
• Description: What the vulnerability is
• Exploit scenario: How it could be exploited
• Remediation: Specific fix recommendation

Output

Produce a structured security review report with an executive summary, findings table sorted by severity, and detailed per-finding writeups.

Related Skills

• insecure-defaults-finder — configuration security
• static-code-analysis — multi-tool static analysis
• semgrep-rule-creator — custom detection rules

GitNexus Index

This skill is indexed by GitNexus for knowledge graph traversal. Index path: /Users/localuser/.claude/skills/c-security-review/.gitnexus Last indexed: 2026-05-23