Stack smashing detected

Stack Smashing here is actually caused due to a protection mechanism used by gcc to detect buffer overflow errors. For example in the following snippet:

#include <stdio.h>

void func()
{
    char array[10];
    gets(array);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    func();
}

The compiler, (in this case gcc) adds protection variables (called canaries) which have known values. An input string of size greater than 10 causes corruption of this variable resulting in SIGABRT to terminate the program.

To get some insight, you can try disabling this protection of gcc using option -fno-stack-protector while compiling. In that case you will get a different error, most likely a segmentation fault as you are trying to access an illegal memory location. Note that -fstack-protector should always be turned on for release builds as it is a security feature.

You can get some information about the point of overflow by running the program with a debugger. Valgrind doesn’t work well with stack-related errors, but like a debugger, it may help you pin-point the location and reason for the crash.

Related Posts:

  1. Stack smashing detected
  2. Floating point exception (core dumped)
  3. Why I do get “Cannot find bound of current function” when I overwrite the ret address of a vulnerable program?
  4. The difference between n++ and ++n at the end of a while loop? (ANSI C)
  5. Working on code to calculate cosine with factorial sum
  6. warning: implicit declaration of function
  7. Two questions about basic C programs
  8. What exactly is the difference between “pass by reference” in C and in C++?
  9. What does “collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status” mean?
  10. How to convert an int to string in C?
  11. what is the difference between uint16_t and unsigned short int incase of 64 bit processor?
  12. Correct format specifier for double in printf
  13. char *array and char array[]
  14. Get a substring of a char*
  15. What causes the Broken Pipe Error?
  16. What is EOF in the C programming language?
  17. Why does the terminal show “^[[A” “^[[B” “^[[C” “^[[D” when pressing the arrow keys in Ubuntu?
  18. Write to .txt file?
  19. Reading from file using read() function
  20. What is the difference between ++i and i++?
  21. warning: assignment makes integer from pointer without a cast
  22. munmap_chunk(): invalid pointer
  23. printf() formatting for hexadecimal
  24. The importance of c enumeration (typedef enum) [duplicate]
  25. What does #pragma once mean in C? [duplicate]
  26. Connect: Socket operation on non-socket
  27. “Initializer element is not constant” in C
  28. How do you do exponentiation in C?
  29. Printing long int value in C
  30. Undefined reference to pow( ) in C, despite including math.h [duplicate]
  31. Undefined reference to pow( ) in C, despite including math.h [duplicate]
  32. C programming, error: called object is not a function or function pointer
  33. How to convert an int to string in C?
  34. Process finished with exit code 11 | Error during malloc [duplicate]
  35. How does wait(NULL) exactly work?
  36. How to replicate vector in c?
  37. Try catch statements in C
  38. How do I create an array of strings in C?
  39. How to check if a string is a number?
  40. C compile error: “Variable-sized object may not be initialized”
  41. What does WEXITSTATUS(status) return?
  42. Difference between a Structure and a Union
  43. Xcode – Warning: Implicit declaration of function is invalid in C99
  44. Error: control may reach end of non-void function in C
  45. C language: float % float why expression must have integral type
  46. Reading \r (carriage return) vs \n (newline) from console with getc?
  47. Invalid pointer error on invoking free() after malloc in C
  48. In C, how should I read a text file and print all strings
  49. What does “Size in TCHARs” means?
  50. Python ? (conditional/ternary) operator for assignments
  51. What’s the difference between a file descriptor and file pointer?
  52. return makes integer from pointer without a cast [-Wint-conversion] return candidate
  53. Math constant PI value in C
  54. Cygwin – Makefile-error: recipe for target `main.o’ failed
  55. Why am I getting “undefined reference to sqrt” error even though I include math.h header?
  56. How can I use an array of function pointers?
  57. Expected declaration specifier error in function
  58. When and why to use malloc?
  59. Multiple definition of … linker error
  60. Does sizeof return the number of bytes or the number of octets of a type in C?
  61. C compile error: Id returned 1 exit status
  62. How do I concatenate const/literal strings in C?
  63. Efficient way to find task_struct by pid
  64. Why am I getting this memory access error ‘double free or corruption’?
  65. Passing an array by reference in C?
  66. size of struct in C
  67. Warning: return from incompatible pointer type in C
  68. How to generate a random number between 0 and 1?
  69. How can one print a size_t variable portably using the printf family?
  70. How to make sense of modulo in c
  71. Memory Clobbering Error
  72. “No such file or directory” error in CodeBlocks
  73. Check if input is integer type in C
  74. Iterate through a C array
  75. Uninitialized value was created by a heap allocation
  76. Makefile:1: *** missing separator. Stop
  77. double free or corruption (!prev) error in c program
  78. xorl %eax – Instruction set architecture in IA-32
  79. What does this GCC error “… relocation truncated to fit…” mean?
  80. Using floats with sprintf() in embedded C
  81. Printf width specifier to maintain precision of floating-point value
  82. Two or more data types in declaration specifiers error
  83. ‘sprintf’: double precision in C
  84. C printing bits
  85. How do I find the time complexity (Big O) of while loop?
  86. Why do we use NULL in strtok()?
  87. PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER vs pthread_mutex_init ( &mutex, param)
  88. How to concatenate string and int in C?
  89. execvp: bad address error
  90. How detect malloc failure?
  91. A Simple, 2d cross-platform graphics library for c or c++?
  92. Removing last character in C
  93. error: ISO C forbids nested functions – What’s wrong?
  94. Dereference void pointer
  95. Use of flag in c?
  96. Carriage return in C?
  97. fgetc(stdin) in a loop is producing strange behaviour
  98. Difference between “while” loop and “do while” loop
  99. Swapping 2 Bytes of Integer
  100. GDB no such file or directory

Leave a Comment