Re: Linux Buffer Overflow Security Exploits

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Wed, 3 Mar 1999 22:54:01 -0500 (EST)


Oliver Xymoron writes:

> o Addresses and data are stored on the same stack, making it possible to
> fool a program into thinking that data is an address. True for basically
> any modern architecture.

This could be avoided, with a performance cost. You would lose
a register -- not too bad on a RISC machine I think.

> o The stack growns downwards, making buffer overflows with strings
> relatively common. It's possible the other way, it's just less common.
> True for most architectures.

True for i386, but only convention on RISC. I've long thought it was
stupid to keep doing this.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/