Question

I am trying to run a buffer overflow example to run some code, but the problem is that when I try to run the code just to get a buffer overflow, Windows throws a prompt up stating “Program has stopped working, Windows is checking for a solution to the program. So when I try to make sure it just has a overflow by one byte. The program just runs, but doesn’t pause the command window in order for me to see the segmentation fault error address. Which to my understanding I would need in order to change it and make it run my desired window as the passed parameter.Here is the simple program.

#define BUF_LEN 5

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{

char buf[BUF_LEN];

if (argc > 1)
{
 strcpy(buf, argv[1]);
}
 return 0;
 printf(buf);
 system("pause");
}

Answer 1

The problem lies with the fact that buffer overflow behavior is not standardized – your example may refer to an older version of Windows, which still printed an error address, or to a completely different operating system.

Additionally, not all buffer overflows cause the program to crash – it depends on what data is written where. For small buffer overflows, you may be overwriting only some other local variables or padding space, instead of anything essential for the program execution (like the function return address).