Consequences
An accidental overflow may result in data corruption or unexpected behavior by any process which uses the affected memory area. On operating systems without memory protection, this could be any process on the system.
A deliberate exploit may result in data at a specific location being altered in an arbitrary way, or in arbitrary code being executed.
The Microsoft JPEG GDI+ vulnerability MS04-028 is an example of the danger a heap overflow can represent to a computer user.
iOS jailbreaking often uses Heap overflows to gain arbitrary code, usually for kernel exploits to achieve the ability to replace the kernel with the one jailbreak provides.
Read more about this topic: Heap Overflow
Famous quotes containing the word consequences:
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“If you are prepared to accept the consequences of your dreams ... then you must still regard America today with the same naive enthusiasm as the generations that discovered the New World.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
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—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)