Using the exec-shield Kernel Patch on Slackware 10.1 The Holy
Grail of most any hacker trying to get access to a system is the
remote buffer overflow attack. Well, actually, it's finding a
Windows PC not protected by a firewall, but the remote buffer
overflow attack is a (somewhat) close second. This article will
discus one way to help protect against this type of attack on a
Slackware Linux system with the installation of a special system
called exec-shield. This installation will occur in two phases.
The first phase is installing the exec-shield kernel patch, the
second is replacing some of Slackware's packages with ones that
are compiled to work together with exec-shield. What is a Buffer
Overflow Attack? Before we explain how to protect against a
buffer overflow attack, it is useful to examine what exactly
this attack is and what the ramifications are for an unprotected
system. When writing software, it's often the case that a
programmer needs to set aside memory to hold information coming
into the progra