Computer Exploitation
Program exploitation is a staple of hacking. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, a program is made up of a complex set of rules following a certain execution flow that ultimately tells the computer what to do. Exploiting a program is simply a clever way of getting the computer to do what you want it to do, even if the currently running program was designed to prevent that action. Since a program can really only do what it’s designed to do, the security holes are actually flaws or oversights in the design of the program or the environment the program is running in. It takes a creative mind to find these holes and to write programs that compensate for them. Sometimes these holes are the products of relatively obvious programmer errors, but there are some less obvious errors that have given birth to more complex exploit techniques that can be applied in many different places.
A program can only do what it’s programmed to do, to the letter of the law. Unfortunately, what’s written doesn’t always coincide with what the programmer intended the program to do. This principle can be explained with a joke: (more…)
