Which technology provides buffer overflow prevention by making it difficult to guess the location of executable files stored in RAM?

Which technology provides buffer overflow prevention by making it difficult to guess the location of executable files stored in RAM?

• A. Secure Enclave
• B. ASLR
• C. Local Drive Encryption
• D. NX Bit

Answer: (B)

The technique is Address Space Layout Randomization. It works by randomizing where crucial parts of a program—like the executable code, libraries, stack, and heap—are loaded in RAM each time the program runs. Because the exact addresses are unpredictable, an attacker can’t reliably guess where to jump to or where to place a return address during a buffer overflow exploit. This uncertainty makes exploiting memory corruption much harder and reduces the chance of a successful attack.

Other options don’t fit this specific goal. A Secure Enclave is a hardware-protected area for secrets, not about randomizing memory addresses. Local Drive Encryption protects data at rest on storage, not memory layout. The NX bit (no-execute) prevents code execution from certain memory regions, which helps stop injected code from running, but it doesn’t address the problem of guessing where code is located in RAM.