updated
authorChristian Urban <christian dot urban at kcl dot ac dot uk>
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 22:09:44 +0000
changeset 451 b6eb8142dec1
parent 450 f3d5e57ca00a
child 452 3447cc029e2f
updated
handouts/ho03.tex
--- a/handouts/ho03.tex	Fri Feb 12 05:33:38 2016 +0000
+++ b/handouts/ho03.tex	Mon Feb 22 22:09:44 2016 +0000
@@ -49,11 +49,30 @@
 \end{tikzpicture}
 \end{center}
 
-\noindent This statistics shows that in the last seven years
-or so the number of buffer overflow attacks is around 10\% of
-all attacks (whereby the absolute numbers of attacks grow each
-year). So you can see buffer overflow attacks are very
-relevant today.
+\noindent This statistics shows that in the last seven years or so the
+number of buffer overflow attacks is around 10\% of all attacks
+(whereby the absolute numbers of attacks grow each year). So you can
+see buffer overflow attacks are very relevant today. For example, very
+recently (February 2016) a buffer overflow attack was discovered in the glibc
+library:\footnote{\url{http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/extremely-severe-bug-leaves-dizzying-number-of-apps-and-devices-vulnerable/}}
+
+\begin{quote}\it
+``Since 2008, vulnerability has left apps and hardware open to remote
+  hijacking. Researchers have discovered a potentially catastrophic flaw in
+  one of the Internet's core building blocks that leaves hundreds or
+  thousands of apps and hardware devices vulnerable to attacks that can take
+  complete control over them.  The vulnerability was introduced in 2008 in
+  GNU C Library, a collection of open source code that powers thousands of
+  standalone applications and most distributions of Linux, including those
+  distributed with routers and other types of hardware. A function known as
+  getaddrinfo() that performs domain-name lookups contains a buffer overflow
+  bug that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code. It can be
+  exploited when vulnerable devices or apps make queries to
+  attacker-controlled domain names or domain name servers or when they're
+  exposed to man-in-the-middle attacks where the adversary has the ability
+  to monitor and manipulate data passing between a vulnerable device and the
+  open Internet. All versions of glibc after 2.9 are vulnerable.''
+\end{quote}
 
 
 To understand how buffer overflow attacks work, we have to have