Defeating the Hacker - Part1: Preventing Stack Smashing - Seguridad Mania.com - España y América Latina

While “good guys” are trying to secure their code from all possible attacks, hackers only need a small hole in the castle with their brilliant programming skills without constraint. Despite recent platform security options, hackers can exploit the vulnerable code due to common programing errors. So, here is the thumb rule to ensure you are really “protecting your castle”.

If you see a security flaw in your code, FIX it, just FIX it. Don’t get caught thinking “if there is anyone who would know this & could exploit it.”

We will talk about ‘buffer overflow attacks’ on applications & how we (as programmers) can minimize the risk by following security principles. This will be a 3 part series, and in the first session part we will discuss Stack Smashing in detail.

Key Takeaways

-What is stack smashing and how a buffer overflow can be exploited to smash the stack?

-What are compiler security options and how they can help? 

-Can a buffer overflow be exploited despite more secured platform options?

-What are the coding guidelines to prevent stack smashing attacks?

-Which tools can help me detect buffer overflow flaws in my code?