Memory randomization as application security enhancement?

Question

I recently came upon a Microsoft article that touted new \"defensive enhancements\" of Windows 7. Specifically:

• Address space layout randomization (ASLR)

Answer 1

It makes attacks like return to libc (or return to user-provided data buffer in the case of the latter two) much harder. And yes, it is available in Linux, BSD, and Mac OS. As you would expect, the details vary by OS. See Wikipedia for an introduction.