CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) — Question 705

A systems administrator reports degraded performance on a virtual server. The administrator increases the virtual memory allocation, which improves conditions, but performance degrades again after a few days. The administrator runs an analysis tool and sees the following output:
==3214== timeAttend.exe analyzed
==3214== ERROR SUMMARY:
==3214== malloc/free: in use at exit: 4608 bytes in 18 blocks.
==3214== checked 82116 bytes
==3214== definitely lost: 4608 bytes in 18 blocks.
The administrator terminates the timeAttend.exe, observes system performance over the next few days, and notices that the system performance does not degrade. Which of the following issues is MOST likely occurring?

Answer options

• A. DLL injection
• B. API attack
• C. Buffer overflow
• D. Memory leak

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The output from the analysis tool indicates that there are memory blocks that are definitely lost, which characterizes a memory leak. This explains the initial performance improvement after increasing virtual memory, but performance degradation upon continued operation of timeAttend.exe. The other options, such as DLL injection, API attack, and buffer overflow, do not directly correlate with the symptoms and output described.