CIS 512 Enterprise Architecture STRAYER UNIVERSITy (1 Pages 306 Words)

A buffer overflow occurs when a program or process tries to store more data in abuffer (temporary data storage area) than it was intended to hold. Since buffers are created to contain a finite amount of data, the extra information which has to go somewhere can overflow into adjacent buffers, corrupting or overwriting the valid data held in them. Although it may occur accidentally through programming error, buffer overflow is an increasingly common type of security attack ondata integrity. In buffer overflow attacks, the extra data may contain codes designed to trigger specific actions, in effect sending new instructions to the attacked computer that could, for example, damage the users...