THE SHELLCODER'S HANDBOOK

Aleph One did not invent the stack overflow; knowledge and exploitation of stack overflows had been passed around for a decade or longer before "Smashing the Stack" was released. Stack overflows have theoretically been around for as long as the C language, and exploitation of these vulnerabilities has occurred regularly for well over 25 years. Even though they are likely the best understood and most publicly documented class of vulnerability, stack overflow vulnerabilities remain generally prevalent in software produced today. Check your favorite security news list; it’s likely that a stack overflow vulnerability is being reported even as you read this chapter.