buffer overflow (thing) by Jargon

buffer overflow n.

What happens when you try to stuff more data into a buffer (holding area) than it can handle. This problem is commonly exploited by crackers to get arbitrary commands executed by a program running with root permissions. This may be due to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and consuming processes (see overrun and firehose syndrome), or because the buffer is simply too small to hold all the data that must accumulate before a piece of it can be processed. For example, in a text-processing tool that crunches a line at a time, a short line buffer can result in lossage as input from a long line overflows the buffer and trashes data beyond it. Good defensive programming would check for overflow on each character and stop accepting data when the buffer is full up. The term is used of and by humans in a metaphorical sense. "What time did I agree to meet you? My buffer must have overflowed." Or "If I answer that phone my buffer is going to overflow." See also spam, overrun screw.

--Jargon File, autonoded by rescdsk.

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buffer overflow attack	overflowing C	firehose syndrome	Keyboards in a computer lab with very sticky keys that make you
overrun screw	Bug	buffer chuck	Overrun
computer security	Format string vulnerabilities	electric fence	The most elusive type of problem in a C program
Laughter reaction to acting abusively	C string	buffer underrun	self-narrating zoo exhibit
showstopper bug	buffer overrun	specially malformed	Purify
Segmentation fault	overflow	ssh