Unfortunately, I don’t have much experience with 64-bit code, so I don’t know about the exact details:
Actually, you don’t need a shadow stack or a stack frame. But some 64-bit functions require rsp
to be 16-byte-aligned.
This means that the value of rsp
must be a multiple of 16 when a function is called.
If your function looks like this:
myFunction:
lea rcx, QWORD PTR [message]
call [print_message] ;it covered return address to bad address
...
… then rsp
is a multiple of 16 before the instruction call myFunction
. And call myFunction
pushes 8 bytes to the stack, so rsp
is no longer a multiple of 16 (but the value of rsp
can be written as 16*n+8).
When you perform call [print_message]
, rsp
is not a multiple of 16 and the program crashes if the function print_message
requires rsp
to be 16-byte-aligned.
The instructions sub rsp, 8
and push rbp
will subtract 8 from the rsp
so the value of rsp
is a multiple of 16 again.
The background are certain CPU instructions that require an address that is a multiple of 16 as argument. Example:
print_message:
sub rsp, 24
; The next instruction will crash if rsp is not
; a multiple of 16. This is the case if rsp was
; not a multiple of 16 before the
; "call print_message" instruction
paddd xmm0, [rsp]
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