Absfrocf-Buffer ovemow vulnerabilities in the memory stack continue to pose serious threats to network and computer security. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, a malicious party can strategically overwrite the return address of a procedure call, obtain control of a system, and subsequently launch more virulent attacks. SoRware countermeasures for such intrusions entail modifications to applications, compilers, and operating systems. Despite the availability of these defenses, many systems remain vulnerable to buffer overtlow attacks. In this paper, we present a hardwaw-based solution that prevents buffer overtlow attacks involving procedure return address corruption. We add a secure return address stack to the processor that provides built-in, dynamic protection against return address tampering without reqmiriag any effort by users or application programmers. Also, the performance impact is negligible for most applieationr Changes are not required of application source code, so both legacy and future software cau enjoy the security benefits ofthis solution. Keywordr-bu //er overJ7lm. processor architemre, computer securily, nehvork securily, refurn address corrupfwn
Secure Return Address Stack(SARS) is a hardware implementation of StackShield targeting function return address protection REF .
A processor architecture defense against buffer overflow attacks
International Conference on Information Technology: Research and Education, 2003. Proceedings. ITRE2003.
International Conference on Information Technology: Research and Education, 2003. Proceedings. ITRE2003.
Computer Science