ISC2 CISSP Practice Question

Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) is the best choice because it randomizes the in-memory locations of the stack, heap, libraries, and executable code each time a process starts. This unpredictability makes it far more difficult for an attacker to know where to jump when exploiting a buffer-overflow or code-injection vulnerability.

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) marks certain memory pages as non-executable, helping block injected shell-code, but it does not randomize addresses and can still be bypassed via techniques such as return-oriented programming. Stack canaries detect some stack-based overflows but do not randomize memory layout. Transport Layer Security (TLS) protects data in transit rather than defending against in-memory exploitation.