A system administrator is troubleshooting a possible denial of service on a sensitive system. The system seems to run properly for a few hours after it is restarted, but then it suddenly stops…

Question

Options

• AThe system does not implement proper garbage collection.
• BThe system is susceptible to integer overflow.
• CThe system does not implement input validation.
• DThe system does not protect against buffer overflows properly.

• A
  56% (27)
• B
  15% (7)
• C
  23% (11)
• D
  6% (3)

Explanation

The process output shows memory consumption growing exponentially over time with the same PID (2055), while the system ultimately stops processing transactions: 920K → 5.2M → 22M → 1.6G → 8.0G. This is a classic memory leak pattern - the process continuously allocates memory but never releases it. In managed runtime environments (Java, .NET, etc.), this occurs when objects are not properly released and garbage collection (GC) fails to reclaim allocated heap space, eventually exhausting available memory and causing the system to halt. A developer with malicious intent could have deliberately introduced code that prevents GC from reclaiming memory (e.g., by maintaining hidden references to objects). Integer overflow (B) would produce incorrect calculation results or unexpected behavior, not gradual memory exhaustion. Input validation failure (C) would lead to injection or logic errors. Buffer overflow (D) typically causes immediate crashes or enables code execution exploits, not a slow, progressive memory growth pattern over hours.

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