Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

RETGUARD: A Return-Oriented Programming Defense From OpenBSD

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 13 2017, @06:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the going-back dept.

canopic jug writes:

Return-oriented programming (ROP) is now a common technique for compromising systems via a stack-smashing vulnerability. Although restrictions on executing code on the stack have mostly put an end to many simple stack-smashing attacks, that does not mean that they are no longer a threat. There are various schemes in use for defeating ROP attacks. A new mechanism called "RETGUARD" is being implemented in OpenBSD and is notable for its relative simplicity. It makes use of a simple return-address transformation to disrupt ROP chains to hinder their execution and takes the form of a patch to the LLVM compiler adding a new flag.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
RETGUARD: A Return-Oriented Programming Defense From OpenBSD | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 32 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:14AM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:14AM (#567633) Homepage
    The idea is to separate the control from the data. That way malicious data is never more than untrusted octets sitting in a region where you should expect untrusted octets. Of course, if you're a shitty coder, you'll permit untrusted data to overwrite other untrusted data, and thus change the logic flow of the program, but that's a different kind of exploit than one where the attacker irectly controls your IP.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2