Gray Hat Hacking, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

Local Buffer Overflow Exploits

Local exploits are easier to perform than remote exploits. This is because you have access to the system memory space and can debug your exploit more easily.

The basic concept of buffer overflow exploits is to overflow a vulnerable buffer and change eip for malicious purposes. Remember, eip points to the next instruction to be executed. A copy of eip is saved on the stack as part of calling a function in order to be able to continue with the command after the call when the function completes. If you can influence the saved eip value, when the function returns, the corrupted value of eip will be popped off the stack into the register (eip) and be executed.

Components of the Exploit

To build an effective exploit ...