The product releases a resource that is still intended to be used by itself or another actor.

This weakness focuses on errors in which the product should not release a resource, but performs the release anyway. This is different than a weakness in which the product releases a resource at the appropriate time, but it maintains a reference to the resource, which it later accesses. For this weakness, the resource should still be valid upon the subsequent access.
When a product releases a resource that is still being used, it is possible that operations will still be taken on this resource, which may have been repurposed in the meantime, leading to issues similar to CWE-825. Consequences may include denial of service, information exposure, or code execution.

Resultant

Implementation

Confidentiality
Read Application Data
Read Memory
If the released resource is subsequently reused or reallocated, then a read operation on the original resource might access sensitive data that is associated with a different user or entity.

Availability
DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
When the resource is released, the software might modify some of its structure, or close associated channels (such as a file descriptor). When the software later accesses the resource as if it is valid, the resource might not be in an expected state, leading to resultant errors that may lead to a crash.

Integrity
Confidentiality
Availability
Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Modify Application Data
Modify Memory
When the resource is released, the software might modify some of its structure. This might affect logic in the sections of code that still assume the resource is active. If the released resource is related to memory and is used in a function call, or points to unexpected data in a write operation, then code execution may be possible upon subsequent accesses.

Automated Static Analysis
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)

CVE-2009-3547
Chain: race condition (CWE-362) might allow resource to be released before operating on it, leading to NULL dereference (CWE-476)
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3547

Allowed
This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

Under-studied and under-reported as of September 2010. This weakness has been reported in high-visibility software, although the focus has been primarily on memory allocation and de-allocation. There are very few examples of this weakness that are not directly related to memory management, although such weaknesses are likely to occur in real-world software for other types of resources.

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-09-22
1.10
2010-09-27

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Description, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-01-31
updated Common_Consequences, Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-04-27
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-10-26
updated Observed_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Applicable_Platforms, Detection_Factors, Time_of_Introduction, Weakness_Ordinalities