“We also have trade-offs — for example, we could write everything in language that is built to prevent buffer overflows, like Visual Basic, where all the buffers are checked.

There have been concerted efforts by the software development world to seek out and fix buffer overflows in code. It seems, however, that they will always be with us. Write once, check twice ...

Researchers at IBM disclosed a serious buffer overflow vulnerability in Android 4.3 and earlier that could lead to code execution. The bug is patched in KitKat, but most users are on older versions.

Developers with HardenedBSD also addressed the buffer overflow on Tuesday when it released code for a stable version of its operating system – 10-STABLE v46.20 – on GitHub.