Memory protection

Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern processor architectures and operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it. This prevents a bug or malware within a process from affecting other processes, or the operating system itself. An attempt to access unowned memory results in a hardware fault, called a segmentation fault or storage violation exception, generally causing abnormal termination of the offending process. Memory protection for computer security includes additional techniques such as address space layout randomization and executable space protection.