A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes outside its designated memory space, potentially corrupting other programs. This can cause serious errors and crashes. Buffers are temporary memory storage locations used for transferring information. Overflows can cause information to be lost and interfere with other programs.
A buffer overflow occurs when a program attempts to write to a buffer and goes out of bounds, causing the program to write information into memory that potentially belongs to another program. This violates memory integrity within the operating system, resulting in a serious error and potential crash of the running program. The greatest danger of a buffer overflow comes from two main elements. First, information written outside the buffer is apparently “lost,” because the computer’s memory map—its list of memory locations—can’t account for it. Second, a buffer overflow can accidentally overwrite information stored in memory for another program, effectively interfering with another program’s execution as well.
A “buffer” is a region of memory used as a temporary storage location while the computer transfers information from one point to another. The most common use of a buffer is typically in video or audio playback, where the computer detects X additional seconds of video or audio in memory, ensuring that playback won’t be interrupted if something goes temporarily wrong with the system. A buffer exists only within a specific, predetermined location within computer memory, just as a country exists only within boundary lines drawn on a map. Leaving these virtual “lines” leads to problems not only for the running program, but for other programs on the system.
In essence, the program has gone out of its assigned jurisdiction and invaded another work program’s space. Once that happens, information written outside the buffer effectively falls off the computer map; in other words, the system has no way to recover it. Since the computer only “knows” to look for buffered information within the specific buffer space allocated in memory, it has no way of knowing where the overflowed information has gone.
Beyond that, a buffer overflow has the potential to disrupt other programs running on your computer. Imagine that the memory space on either side of the buffer has already been allocated to other running programs. Once the information in the buffer exceeds the designed area, it will overwrite and corrupt any information already stored in those sections of memory. Therefore, a buffer overflow is a problem that can undermine the effectiveness of an adjacent program as well as corrupt its own functioning.
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