Re: fixing all buffer overflows --- random magin numbers

[nmanisca () VT EDU (nm)]

Neat idea.

But, couldn't someone just take a common binary (say ls) that exists
on the target system and reverse engineer it and begin to make a mapping
of numbers to syscalls.

Nick Maniscalco

At 09:37 PM 9/11/99 -0400, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote:
> I was thinking --- it wouldn't be too hard to make buffer overflow
> attacks impossible.  The basic idea is to do away with binary
> compatibility.
>
> In particular, I was thinking that part of building a kernel would
> involve assigning a random number to each syscall, and creating a
> syscall.h file with these random numbers.  A binary would only run if
> it was compiled with the proper syscall.h, so all binaries would have
> to be recompiled for the new kernel, but then, syscall.h could be
> removed, and the system would be impervious to buffer overflow
> attacks.  (One step further would involve random magic numbers in
> every function call.)
>
> I would be happy to give up binary compatilibyt for the added security
> it would add.
>
> Comments?
>
> -Joel Hoffman
> (joel () exc com)