Summary

Buffer overflow attacks are very dangerous, with the resulting damage ranging from crashing a machine to gaining root/administrator access. Because these types of attacks are not caused by systems that are configured incorrectly, but by programming mistakes on the part of the developers, whenever you use software, you are putting blind trust that the vendor coded the application correctly. In cases where vendor developers did not code it correctly, you might not realize the problem for several years. This can be very dangerous because when people use software over a long period of time, they get a false sense of security that it is secure, when in reality, it can be quite vulnerable.

Therefore, it is critical that administrators understand ...

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