PTKDMobile App Security
Knowledge base / PTKD-BIN-NOCANARY
low M7 MASVS-RESILIENCE-1 static analysis PTKD-BIN-NOCANARY

Executable built without stack canaries

No stack-protector symbols were found, so stack-buffer overflows are not detected at runtime.

How it's exploited

Missing stack canaries (__stack_chk_guard) means a stack buffer overflow overwrites the return address without tripping a check, making classic smash-the-stack exploitation viable again.

Why it matters

Native-code overflow bugs become straightforwardly exploitable instead of crashing safely.

How to fix it

  1. Compile with -fstack-protector-strong (Xcode/NDK default; check custom Makefiles and third-party .so/.dylib files).
  2. Rebuild or replace vendored native libraries that lack canaries.

References