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Today I spent some time playing arround Windows Vista Beta 2. There is one interesting thing that i found out. It has ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) and it is turned on by default. It is a great against defense against buffer overrrun exploits called address space layout randomization. This defense is of course not a replacement for insecure code but it is indeed a usefull in Mult-Llayered defense. So remote exploitation of overflows has just got a lot harder.

So what is ASLR?

Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a computer security feature which involves arranging the positions of key data areas, usually including the base of the executable and position of libraries, heap, and stack, randomly in a process' address space. This hinders some types of security attack by preventing an attacker being able to easily predict target addresses, for example attackers trying to execute return-to-libc attacks may find it harder to locate the code to be executed. Several security systems implement ASLR, notably OpenBSD and the PaX and Exec Shield patches for Linux.

ASLR relies on the low chance of an attacker guessing where randomly placed areas are located: the odds are 1 / 2b, where b is the number of bits of entropy used to determine the position of the data area. In many systems, 2b can be in the thousands or millions; on modern 64-bit systems, these numbers typically reach the millions at least. Some systems implement Library Load Order Randomization, a form of ASLR where the order in which libraries are loaded is randomised. This leaves libraries at unpredictable positions: the chances of an attacker correctly guessing the location of a library is 1 / n, where n is the number of libraries loaded.