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Understanding Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
What is Buffer Overflows Vulnerability?
Buffers are those memory blocks that are used to store temporary data at the time when data is transferred from one location to another location. Most buffers are used in software programs where we temporarily need to save the variable values.
Example: We have an application that can accept the user input of 20 characters. So to process the user input memory buffer needs 20 bytes. but if the user inserts more than 20 characters in the field then the program will go outside and buffer and may write the buffer that is being used for some other program.
There may be a situation where excess data will overwrite the executable code. If executable code is overwritten, the data there may cause the situation program to behave unpredictably and generate incorrect results. Incorrect results such as
- Memory Access Error
- Crashes the application/system
- Provide an entry point to the attacker to exploit the application, even it can make the server Down so that no one can use the application.
