Editing Memory protection (section)

{{Short description|Way to control memory access rights on a computer}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2012}}
'''Memory protection''' is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern [[instruction set architecture]]s and [[operating system]]s.  The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a [[process (computing)|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.  Protection may encompass all accesses to a specified area of memory, write accesses, or attempts to execute the contents of the area. An attempt to access unauthorized{{efn|Depending on the architecture, that may include, e.g., unallocated pages and segments, pages in a different protection domain, pages requiring a higher privilege level.}} memory results in a hardware [[Trap (computing)|fault]], e.g., a [[segmentation fault]], [[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]].