Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4020 mails)

[Randall R Schulz <rschulz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Anders,

On Monday 04 October 2004 13:12, Anders Johansson wrote:
> On Monday, 4 October 2004 21.51, Örn Hansen wrote:
> > måndag 04 oktober 2004 18:54 skrev Anders Johansson:
> > > I have no idea what you're talking about, what technology would that
> > > be?
> > >
> > > A quick google gave this:
> > >
> > > http://www.vnsecurity.net/data/library/heaptut.txt
> >
> >   Thank you for a nice pointer, it just proved my point ... to use any of
> > these exploits, you need comprehensive knowledge of the code and program
> > to be exploited.
>
> Yes, you're right, every exploit ever created was produced by someone with
> access to the source. No one could ever exploit any program ever without
> knowing how it was programmed

Yes and no (depending on what you mean by "how it was programmed").

One thing we don't yet have is computers (general-purpose, desktop-style 
computers) that can execute a program that cannot be examined, albeit in 
machine code form, by the person who's executing it. A diligent programmer 
with good tools who understands code at the assembly / machine level and 
understands the hardware, compiler and operating system architectural model 
can devise exploits without recourse to the C or C++ or assembly source code.

In fact, given that stack overflow exploits (one variety, anyway) are about 
hijacking the execution path by overwriting the return address on the call 
stack, some aspects of devising such hacks are probably facilitated by 
examining the assembly / machine code instructions rather than the 
higher-level program source code.

But of course, having that source code is an immense aid in devising hacks.


> ...


Randall Schulz