Fuzzing: Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery

Preface

“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”

—George W. Bush, Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000

Introduction

The concept of fuzzing has been around for almost two decades but has only recently captured widespread attention. A plague of vulnerabilities affecting popular client-side applications, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel, were seen in the year 2006 and a large portion of these vulnerabilities were discovered through fuzzing. This effective application of fuzzing technologies gave rise to new tools and increased exposure. The sheer fact that this is the first published book dedicated to the subject matter is an additional indicator that there is an increasing interest ...