War of Control Hijacking
Ragini Karwayun, Monika Sainger · 2022
Computer system security is one of the most important concerns in the current technological era. A major contributor to attacks on computer system security is control hijacking. C/C++ language vulnerabilities resulting in memory corruption exploits result in the most common control hijacking attacks. Control-flow hijacking attacks deflect normal program execution away from the predefined control flow. It permits an attacker to exploit the contents of the program counter of a running program, redirecting the control of the program to a pre-decided location resulting in execution of his own injected code. Such attacks can be used to completely sabotage a remote system, and can very quickly attack all vulnerable machines when used by a fast-spreading worm. There are various language vulnerabilities that result in various types of control hijacking attacks and over the years various techniques have been proposed and used as defense against such attacks. This chapter aims to give a detailed discussion on various types of control hijacking attacks and the numerous defense mechanisms used to counter these attacks. The chapter will also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these defense mechanisms to foil control hijacking attacks.