Virtualizing buffer overflows

Quoting from Mulling Security, the Matt Richard’s blog:

Most people are familiar with the traditional overflow exploit methodology – find a condition where more data is sent to a buffer than the buffer can handle and gain control of program execution. With new protections against buffer overflows popping up (Stackguard, propolice, XP SP2) and better OS level protections such as randomized entry points we might be tempted to think that we’re almost at the end of the road.

There’s a new trend in IT that could bring buffer overflows back. Virtualization is really starting to take hold everywhere from enterprise datacenters to the desktop. In and of itself this probably isn’t news to anyone nor is it necessarily very interesting. What is interesting is how virtualization might lead to a new type of buffer overflow attack….

Read the whole article at source.