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Protecting Against Stack Overflow: STOP

Stack overflow enables hackers to execute arbitrary commands on remote or local systems, many times as the root user (the superuser). They do this by exploiting bugs in the operating system or other programs. These bugs allow users to overwrite the program stack, changing the next command to be executed.

Stack overflow is not simply a bug; it is possible to create a block that overwrites the return address with a meaningful address, resulting in transferred control to unauthorized code (usually in the same block).

Stack Overflow Protection (STOP) is a feature that prevents hackers from creating and exploiting stack overflow to break into systems.