Here's an older article on programming security, but still very useful. Is this something you ever considered to be a concern for your systems in the past? Since we last covered the use of Stack Smashing Protection (SSP) the default compiler for Debian Sid has been upgraded to include it, with no need for custom patching. Read on for a brief demonstration of how it can be used to prevent attacks.
The default C compiler for Sid, which will be used in Etch too, is GCC v4.1. This release contains the SSP patch which previously needed to be applied manually (we demonstrated applying this patch for GCC v3.4 a long time ago).

Since the SSP patch is included in the compiler by default it is suddenly a lot easier to start working with it.

The link for this article located at Debian Administration is no longer available.