Re: Linux Buffer Overflow Security Exploits

Michael Stutz (unknown@riverstyx.net)
Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:34:54 -0800 (PST)

All operating systems are vulnerable to buffer overflow exploits. Harvard
architecture is going to probably prevent typical stack smashing exploits,
but it's not going to prevent all overflow type attacks. The only way to
avoid overflow attacks is to abstract all your data storage, like Java
does. And that's not really true either, depending on how you write your
code...

I don't know anything about Alpha machines, but it shouldn't affect
anything.

I also didn't know that Linux could run on a Harvard architecture. I
didn't know that there were any non Von Neuman(sp?) systems outside of
embedded systems in fact. Consider me uneducated and ill-informed...

---
Tani Hosokawa
River Styx Internet




On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Sarah Addams wrote:


> Excuse my ignorance, but would someone explain to me why Linux and
> other Unices are vulnerable to buffer overflow exploits? I suspect
> it's because the code, data and stack for a given process is kept in a
> single memory segment, but I'm not at all sure about that. If however,
> I'm right, would Linux Alpha, running on a Harvard architecture 21164,
> be immune from this weakness?
>  
> TIA
> 




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