Buffer overflows: attacks and defenses for the vulnerability of the decade

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Abstract
Buffer overflows have been the most common form of security vulnerability for the last ten years. More over, buffer overflow vulnerabilities dominate the area of remote network penetra- tion vulnerabilities, where an anonymous Inter- net user seeks to gain partial or total control of a host. If buffer overflow vulnerabilities could be effectively eliminated, a very large portion of the most serious security threats would also be eliminated. In this paper, we survey the various types of buffer overflow vulnerabilities and attacks, and survey the various defensive mea- sures that mitigate buffer overflow vulnerabili- ties, including our own StackGuard method. We then consider which combinations of techniques can eliminate the problem of buffer overflow vulnerabilities, while preserving the functional- ity and performance of existing systems.

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