PHP: Buffer Overflow

PHP Program Flow A call that is made to execute a sequence of code in PHP program is sent to PHP core library written in C programming language which in turn would talk with the underlying operating system to get the results of its execution. What is buffer? A buffer is a temporary memory location to hold data for faster program execution time. The data may be stored as a heap or as a stack. Stack can be visualized as a FILO array of data and heap as a linked list of data. Why we need to take care of buffer overflows? Programmers who know about certain loop holes can exploit this feature in by pointing a record in the heap or stack to prewritten block of hackable code. These are called buffer overflow attacks. (more…)