Stack protection in packet processing systems

Network security is a critical aspect of Internet operations. Most network security research has focused on protecting end-systems from hacking and denial-of-service attacks. In our work, we address hacking attacks on the network infrastructure itself. In particular, we explore data plane stack smashing attacks that have demonstrated successfully on network processor systems. We explore their use in the context of software routers that are implemented on top of general-purpose processor and operating systems. We discuss how such attacks can be adapted to these router systems and how stack protection mechanisms can be used as defense. We show experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of these stack protection mechanisms.