KBTAG: kben10000084
URL: http://www.securityportal.com/lskb/10000050/kben10000084.html
Date created: 17/07/2000
Date modified:
Date removed:
Authors(s): Kurt Seifried seifried@securityportal.com
Topic: Linux - preventing buffer overflows
Keywords: Software
Buffer overflows are one of the most common attacks, especially remote attacks. There are several methods to prevent software with buffer overflows from actually letting an attacker in.
StackGuard is a set of patches for GCC that compile programs to prevent them from writing to locations in memory they shouldn't (simplistic explanation, the StackGuard website has much better details). StackGuard does break some functionality however, programs like gdb and other debuggers will fail, but this is generally not a concern for high security production servers. You can get StackGuard from: http://www.immunix.org/.
Stack Shield is an alternate method for protecting Linux binaries from buffer overflows, however I have not yet tried it. You can get it at: http://www.angelfire.com/sk/stackshield/.
Libsafe
Libsafe lets you protect binary only software and is available freely, you can get it at: http://www.bell-labs.com/org/11356/html/security.html.