Buffer overflow

Buffer overflow can cause the program to crash or leak private information. A buffer in case of a running program, can be considered as a section in a computer's main memory with specific boundaries, so basically accessing any buffer outside this allocated region of memory space.

As the variables are stored together in stack/heap, accessing anything outside this boundary may cause read/write of some bytes of some other variables. But with a better understanding we can execute some attacks.

How to do it...

Follow the steps to generate an exploit code for buffer overflow attacks in Linux environment:

1. We have to create a vulnerable application for the test. Create a bof.c file and add the following code:

#include <stdio.h>  
void secretFunction() 
{ 
printf("Congratulations!\n"); 
printf("You have entered in the secret function!\n"); 
}  
void echo() 
{ 
char buffer[20];  
printf("Enter some text:\n"); 
scanf("%s", buffer); 
printf("You entered: %s\n", buffer); 
}  
int main...