Buffer
Overflow Causes. ©2002, Jedidiah R. Crandall, Susan L. Gerhart, Jan G.
Hogle.
http://sfsecurity.pr.erau.edu
Careless use of buffers without bounds checking - Consequences.
•If the buffer overflow is big enough the attacker can hijack the machine. For example, in UNIX a buffer overflow
of less than 50 bytes in a process that has
root privileges can be used to “spin a shell.” This means that the
attacker obtains a command shell with root privileges. Hijacking the machine can also be done
by a worm as it spreads. But
never assume that small buffers, even if it’s a two byte buffer, are safe
because attack code can be placed in another buffer, beyond the
return pointer, or on the heap.
•Any security sensitive data that follows the buffer can be overwritten, such as passwords or
variables that designate privileges.
•The software might crash.
This can cause a core dump giving the attacker access to any
security-sensitive data that was in the program’s memory at the time of the
core dump.