C6277

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Development Tools and Languages
Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Team System
Development Edition
Writing Quality Code
Detecting and Correcting C/C++ Code Defects
Code Analysis for C/C++ Warnings

C6277
This page is specific to:.NET Framework Version:2.03.54.0

Visual Studio Team System

C6277

warning C6277: NULL application name with an unquoted path in call to <function>: results in a security vulnerability if the path contains spaces

This warning indicates that the application name parameter is null and there might be spaces in the executable path name. In this case, unless the executable name is "fully qualified," there is likely to be a security problem. A malicious user might insert a rogue executable with the same name earlier in the path. To correct this warning, you can specify the application name instead of passing null or if you do pass null for the application name, use quotation marks around the executable path.

Example

The following sample code generates this warning because the application name parameter is null, and the executable path name has a space in it; there is a risk that a different executable could be run because of the way the function parses spaces. For more information, see CreateProcess.

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void f_defective()
{
    STARTUPINFOA si;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;

    ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof( si ) );
    si.cb = sizeof( si );
    ZeroMemory( &pi, sizeof( pi ) );
    if( !CreateProcessA( NULL,
                        "C:\\Program Files\\MyApp",
                        NULL,
                        NULL,
                        FALSE,
                        0,
                        NULL,
                        NULL,
                        &si,
                        &pi ) ) 
    {
        puts( "CreateProcess failed." ); 
        return;
    }
    // Wait until child process exits.
    WaitForSingleObject( pi.hProcess, INFINITE );

    // Close process and thread handles. 
    CloseHandle( pi.hProcess );
    CloseHandle( pi.hThread );
}

To correct this warning, use quotation marks around the executable path, as shown in the following example:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void f ()
{
    STARTUPINFOA si;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;

    ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof( si ) );
    si.cb = sizeof( si );
    ZeroMemory( &pi, sizeof( pi ) );

    if( !CreateProcessA( NULL,
                        "\"C:\\Program Files\\MyApp.exe\"",
                        NULL,
                        NULL,
                        FALSE,
                        0,
                        NULL,
                        NULL,
                        &si,
                        &pi ) ) 
    {
        puts( "CreateProcess failed." ); 
        return;
    }
    // Wait until child process exits.
    WaitForSingleObject( pi.hProcess, INFINITE );

    // Close process and thread handles. 
    CloseHandle( pi.hProcess );
    CloseHandle( pi.hThread );
}