Buffer overflow

Common card · No. 204852

In programming and information security, a buffer overflow or buffer overrun is a bug whereby a program writes data to a buffer beyond the buffer's allocated memory, overwriting adjacent memory locations. Buffers are areas of memory set aside to hold data, often while moving it from one section of a program to another, or between programs. Buffer overflows can often be triggered by malformed inputs; if one assumes all inputs will be smaller than a certain size and the buffer is created to be that size, then an anomalous transaction that produces more data could cause it to write past the end of the buffer. If this overwrites adjacent data or executable code, this may result in erratic program behavior, including memory access errors, incorrect results, and crashes. Exploiting the behavior of a buffer overflow is a well-known security exploit. Files specifically created to exploit buffer overflow vulnerabilities are often called 'crafted' files. On many systems, the memory layout of a program...

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