CREST Practitioner Security Analyst (CPSA) Practice

What is a potential consequence of a buffer overflow in C programming?

1. Memory leak

2. Code Injection

3. Invalid pointer exceptions

4. Access control violations

The correct answer is: Code Injection

A buffer overflow occurs when a program writes more data to a buffer than it can hold, which can lead to unintended behavior. The most significant consequence of this vulnerability is code injection. When a buffer overflow takes place, an attacker can overwrite the stack, heap, or return addresses to inject malicious code into a program's memory space. This injected code can then be executed, compromising the security of the application and potentially leading to unauthorized access or other malicious actions. This type of vulnerability is particularly dangerous in C programming due to the language's low-level memory management and lack of built-in bounds checking. The ability to craft the overflow to point to specific locations in memory allows attackers to execute arbitrary code, gaining control over the execution flow of the application and leading to various security breaches.