McAfee System Protection Solutions Table of Contents Unchecked buffers Exploiting the overflow Now, for the clever part Other types of buffer overflow exploits Preventing buffer overflow exploits Summary Buffer overflow exploits are the tool of choice of today’s attacker. These exploits have the most power, are the easiest to use, and are all too common. Buffer overflows constitute the largest single threat to enterprises today. • Buffer overflow exploits are very common. There are hundreds of known unchecked buffers that can be overflowed by hackers with more being discovered all the time. Over 60% of CERT advisories deal with buffer overflow exploits. • Buffer overflow exploits are easy to use.

Nearly anyone (12 year olds and script kiddies included) can download buffer overflow attack code and follow a simple “recipe” to execute it. No advanced technical knowledge is necessary to run pre-written buffer overflow exploit code. • Buffer overflow exploits are very powerful. In many cases, the malicious code that executes as a result of a buffer overflow will run with administrator-level privileges, and therefore can do anything it wants to the server.

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