Cisco Cyber Security Practice Exam

What is a key characteristic of a buffer overflow attack?

1. It involves social engineering tactics

2. It overloads system memory

3. It requires physical access to the device

4. It typically involves phishing emails

The correct answer is: It overloads system memory

A key characteristic of a buffer overflow attack is that it overloads system memory. This occurs when a program writes more data to a buffer than it can hold, causing the excess data to spill over into adjacent memory locations. This can corrupt data, crash the program, or even allow an attacker to execute malicious code. By exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can manipulate the memory of a program to gain unauthorized access or control over the system. The other options focus on different types of attacks or methods rather than the specific mechanics of a buffer overflow. Social engineering tactics, physical access, and phishing emails do not directly relate to the concept of buffer overflow, which is specifically about the mishandling of memory allocation by software.