Buffer overflows have been a serious security problem for software developers for several decades now. But the history of exploitation research on this class of flaws is relatively short. Attackers and researchers originally focused on finding, fixing or exploiting buffer overflows on non-x86 systems, as those were the machines operating the networks that mattered in the 1980s and early 1990s. The arms race that began in 1996 or earlier on buffer overflow defense and exploitation, is still running, Nate Lawson says.
Source: https://threatpost.com/decades-buffer-overflows-still-target-050310/73912/