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Stack buffer overflow is a type of the more general programming malfunction known as buffer overflow (or buffer overrun). [1] Overfilling a buffer on the stack is more likely to derail program execution than overfilling a buffer on the heap because the stack contains the return addresses for all active function calls.
Visualization of a software buffer overflow. Data is written into A, but is too large to fit within A, so it overflows into B.. In programming and information security, a buffer overflow or buffer overrun is an anomaly whereby a program writes data to a buffer beyond the buffer's allocated memory, overwriting adjacent memory locations.
Canaries or canary words or stack cookies are known values that are placed between a buffer and control data on the stack to monitor buffer overflows. When the buffer overflows, the first data to be corrupted will usually be the canary, and a failed verification of the canary data will therefore alert of an overflow, which can then be handled, for example, by invalidating the corrupted data.
Buffer overflow – out-of-bound writes can corrupt the content of adjacent objects, or internal data (like bookkeeping information for the heap) or return addresses. Buffer over-read – out-of-bound reads can reveal sensitive data or help attackers bypass address space layout randomization .
A "return-to-libc" attack is a computer security attack usually starting with a buffer overflow in which a subroutine return address on a call stack is replaced by an address of a subroutine that is already present in the process executable memory, bypassing the no-execute bit feature (if present) and ridding the attacker of the need to inject their own code.
A buffer overflow; A stack overflow; Attempting to execute a program that does not compile correctly. (Some compilers [which?] will output an executable file despite the presence of compile-time errors.) In C code, segmentation faults most often occur because of errors in pointer use, particularly in C dynamic memory allocation.
Buffer overflow is one of the most common programming flaws exploited by computer viruses, causing serious computer security issues (e.g. return-to-libc attack, stack-smashing protection) in widely used programs. In some cases programs can also incorrectly access the memory before the start of a buffer.
Storage violation can, for instance, consist of reading from, writing to, or freeing storage not owned by the task. A common type of storage violation is known as a stack buffer overflow where a program attempts to exceed the limits set for its call stack. It can also refer to attempted modification of memory "owned" by another thread where ...