Conventional security exploits have relied on overwriting the saved return pointer on the stack to hijack the path of execution. Under Sun Microsystem’s Sparc processor architecture, we were able to implement a kernel modification to transparently and automatically guard applications’ return pointers. Our implementation called StackGhost under OpenBSD 2.8 acts as a ghost in the machine. StackGh...

While autophagy has been shown to act as an anti-viral defense, the Picornaviridae avoid and, in many cases, subvert this pathway to promote their own replication. Evidence indicates that some picornaviruses hijack autophagy in order to induce autophagosome-like membrane structures for genomic RNA replication. Expression of picornavirus proteins can specifically induce the machinery of autophag...

While both brand advocacy and protest have long been theorised as key facets in consumers' behaviour, we submit that the participatory culture of social media, where consumers are free to create publish their own content, mischievous play has also become an inevitable form online brands must deal with. Drawing from Caillois' sociology cultural power model, explore how may playfully hijack brand...

Despite the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) being largest family of signalling proteins at surface cells, their potential to be targeted in cancer therapy is still under-utilised. This review highlights contribution these process oncogenesis and points some likely challenges that might encountered targeting them. GPCR-signalling pathways are often complex can tissue-specific. Cancer cells h...

Pathogens frequently employ eukaryotic linear motif (ELM)-rich intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) to perturb and hijack host cell networks for a productive infection. Mycobacterium tuberculosis has a relatively high percentage of IDPs in its proteome, the significance of which is not known. The Mycobacterium-specific PE-PPE protein family has several members with unusually high levels of ...