While opening an email attachment, Pete, a customer, receives an error that the application has
encountered an unexpected issue and must be shut down. This could be an example of which of
the following attacks?

A.
Cross-site scripting

B.
Buffer overflow

C.
Header manipulation

D.
Directory traversal

Explanation:
When the user opens an attachment, the attachment is loaded into memory. The error is caused
by a memory issue due to a buffer overflow attack.
A buffer overflow occurs when a program or process tries to store more data in a buffer (temporary
data storage area) than it was intended to hold. Since buffers are created to contain a finite
amount of data, the extra information – which has to go somewhere – can overflow into adjacent
buffers, corrupting or overwriting the valid data held in them. Although it may occur accidentally
through programming error, buffer overflow is an increasingly common type of security attack on
data integrity. In buffer overflow attacks, the extra data may contain codes designed to trigger
specific actions, in effect sending new instructions to the attacked computer that could, for
example, damage the user’s files, change data, or disclose confidential information. Buffer
overflow attacks are said to have arisen because the C programming language supplied the
framework, and poor programming practices supplied the vulnerability.