An argument processing flaw can cause `Buffer.alloc()` to return uninitialized memory. This method is intended to be safe and only return initialized, or cleared, memory. The third argument specifying `encoding` can be passed as a number, this is misinterpreted by `Buffer's` internal "fill" method as the `start` to a fill operation. This flaw may be abused where `Buffer.alloc()` arguments are derived from user input to return uncleared memory blocks that may contain sensitive information.

In all versions of Node.js 10 prior to 10.9.0, an argument processing flaw can cause `Buffer.alloc()` to return uninitialized memory. This method is intended to be safe and only return initialized, or cleared, memory. The third argument specifying `encoding` can be passed as a number, this is misinterpreted by `Buffer's` internal "fill" method as the `start` to a fill operation. This flaw may be abused where `Buffer.alloc()` arguments are derived from user input to return uncleared memory blocks that may contain sensitive information.