The Importance of Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities in Firewalls

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure or CVE threats in shorts is a term used to refer to a set of known security risks. Software codes can have loopholes, which allow an attacker to access a network or information technology system directly. The common form of CVE vulnerability is the buffer flow attack against firewalls.

            A buffer overflow is a popular software coding error, which attackers can utilize to access a system. Buffer flow error happens when the amount of data in the buffer is more than it can handle. This results in an overflow of data into adjacent storage (Ajay 1). The data overwrites to the adjacent storage points, which already have existing code instructions. Hackers take advantage of this to inject malicious codes, thus changing the behavior of the programs.  Buffer overflow error can create an access point for attacks or cause the system to crash.

            Since 80 percent of the computers in use today are powered by Windows, the most vulnerable vendor to buffer overflow attacks is Microsoft Windows. The vendor has not released an update on the vulnerability.

            Buffer overflow attacks are more common with programming languages such as C and C++ since they lack inbuilt mechanisms to guard against these attacks.  However, for modern programming languages like Java, the possibility of buffer overflow attacks is very minimal (Ajay 1).  All software developed using C and C++ are very vulnerable. Buffer overflow attacks against firewall are very powerful and their criticality score according to CVE is high (Cole 3).

            Buffer overflow attacks against firewalls are frequent due to poor programming practices. Old programming languages lack internal controls to prevent buffer overflow attacks. Buffer overflow is a severe risk to the security of systems, particularly when it comes to deployed software.

Works Cited

Ajay, Adav. Buffer Overflow Attack & Defense. Infosec Institute. (2017). Retrieved Mar. 1,            2017, from http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/buffer-overflow-attack-defense/

Cole, Eric. Hackers Beware. Indianapolis, Ind: New Riders, 2002. Print.