X86 Example Code
code_starts_here: mov eax, ahead mov, 0x9090 ahead: jmp near to_the_end ; Some other code to_the_end:This self-modifying program will overwrite the jmp to_the_end with two NOPs (which is encoded as 0x9090). The jump jmp near to_the_end is assembled into two bytes of machine code, so the two NOPs will just overwrite this jump and nothing else. (That is, the jump is replaced with a do-nothing-code.)
Because the machine code of the jump is already read into the PIQ, and probably also already executed by the processor (superscalar processors execute several instructions at once, but they "pretend" that they don't because of the need for backward compatibility), the change of the code will not have any change of the execution flow.
Read more about this topic: Prefetch Input Queue
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