Gray Hat Hacking: The Ethical Hacker's Handbook, Sixth Edition, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 10

Basic Linux Exploits

In this chapter, we cover the following topics:

•   Stack operations and function-calling procedures

•   Buffer overflows

•   Local buffer overflow exploits

•   Exploit development process

Why study exploits? Ethical hackers should study exploits to understand whether vulnerabilities are exploitable. Sometimes security professionals mistakenly believe and will publicly state that a certain vulnerability isn’t exploitable, but black hat hackers know otherwise. One person’s inability to find an exploit for a vulnerability doesn’t mean someone else can’t. It’s a matter of time and skill level. Therefore, ethical hackers must understand how to exploit vulnerabilities and check for themselves. In the process, they ...