Binary exploitation: Memory corruption

Abstract

[en] Binaries, or programs compiled down to executables, might come with errors or bugs that could trigger behavior unintended by their authors. By carefully understanding the environment where programs get executed, the instructions and the memory, an attacker can gracefully craft a specific input, tailored to trigger these unintended behaviors and gain control over the original logic of the program. One of the ways this could be achieved, is by corrupting critical values in memory. This works focuses on the main techniques to exploit buffer overfows and other memory corruption vulnerabilities to exploit binaries. Also a proof-of-concept for CVE-2021-3156 is presented with an analysis of its inner workings.