Understanding and preventing integer overflows
Integer overflow exploits can completely take over your programs. Expert Jeff Williams explains the vulnerabilities that leave you open to these types of attacks.
Math operations such as addition, multiplication and shifts can produce a result that is too large to store -- an integer overflow. Depending on the compiler, this integer overflow can result in a sign error, truncating the largest or smallest portion of the result, or another type of error. An integer overflow could lead to a security problem if the overflow affects the value of a pointer that references other code or data in memory. An attack could exploit the integer overflow in a way that allows execution of arbitrary code, resulting in a complete takeover of the vulnerable program's process.
These flaws can be extremely tricky to find and eliminate. The best approach is to use a safe integer class that has been built to avoid these problems. David LeBlanc's column "Integer Handling with the C++ SafeInt Class" provides a detailed mathematical analysis of integer overflows.