Company XYZ has encountered an increased amount of buffer overflow attacks. The programmer

has been tasked to identify the issue and report any findings. Which of the following is the FIRST
step of action recommended in this scenario?

A.
Baseline Reporting

B.
Capability Maturity Model

C.
Code Review

D.
Quality Assurance and Testing

Explanation:
A buffer overflow attack attacks a vulnerability caused by poor coding in an application. Reviewing
the code of the application will enable you to identify code that is vulnerable to buffer overflow.
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.