A Signature-Free Buffer Attack Blocker, Essay Example

Although I have learned much about implementing computing security throughout my training, I have not had much of an opportunity to learn about hacking from the viewpoint of the hacker. Therefore, the most surprising thing that I learned in Chapter 8 was that most hacking attacks target applications at the application layer in addition to the techniques most frequently used for this purpose. I believed that understanding the logic behind this hacking is beneficial because it will provide a context for information technology professionals to understand why certain information security methods are used and how to enhance their efficacy.

The most interesting and challenging concept that the chapter presented concerns buffer overflow attacks. It makes sense that hackers can take advantage of the system by bypassing normal authentication processes, but it is difficult to conceptualize how they do this specifically and therefore difficult to put a stop to this process. Therefore, going beyond the textbook, I aimed to identify a solution to this problem. An article entitled “SigFree: A Signature-free Buffer Over?ow Attack Blocker” proposes a method that could “?lter out code-injection buffer over?ow attack messages targeting at various Internet services” (Wang et al., 2006). Ultimately, it is able to detect the aberrant code. Therefore, buffer overflow attacks will be stopped before they become an issue. Although this is a useful method, I think the IT world will benefit from the development of more advanced techniques for this purpose.

References

Wang X et al. (2006). SigFree: A Signature-free Buffer Over?ow Attack Blocker. USENIX. Retrieved from http://static.usenix.org/event/sec06/tech/full_papers/wang/wang_html/