bugtraq - Re: Buffer overflow prevention

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Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 14:41:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom 7 <twm@...rew.cmu.edu>
To: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Buffer overflow prevention

Crispin Cowan <crispin@...unix.com> wrote:

> Array bounds checking offers greater protection than any of these
> protections (StackGuard, ProPolice, PointGuard, W^X, PAX/ASLR, etc.) The
> problem is that the very fastest array bounds protection for C (Bounded
> Pointers) imposes a 5X slowdown on performance, where as these other
> techniques impose overheat somewhere between noise and 20%.

This may be true. Doing "safe" pointers in C is difficult because of
pointer arithmetic. But I think this is a bit unfair to bounds checking in
general--type safe compiled languages like ML achieve array bounds
checking (and other checks) at a much smaller penalty (less than 20% for
array-oriented code in my experience).  These languages also provide
protection against other common sources of holes, like integer overflow,
double-frees (most are garbage collected) and printf formatting attacks.
This protection is automatic and absolute; the only thing left to worry
about is bugs in the compiler, system library, and kernel (things that C
programmers already need to worry about, anyway).

In my opinion these languages are utterly practical for Unix network
daemons. Of course, this is a bit more work because you don't just
recompile the program, you have to rewrite it from scratch! But there are
other benefits to maintaining code in a modern, safe, high-level language.

 - Tom

 [ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/ ]