check each pointer access against the metadata for validity. Another strategy, when suspecting a small set of classes, is to temporarily make all their member functions virtual: after the class instance has been destructed/freed, its pointer to the Virtual Method Table is set to NULL, and any call to a member function will crash the program and it will show the guilty code in the debugger. See also Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Link rot Memory debugger Wild branch References Software bugs Computer security exploits