StackGhost has proven to be an effective defense against common exploit techniques at a negligible cost to the user. StackGhost's primary merit is that it is a kernel modification and does not require mass recompilation or the administrative headaches of selective protection. The current implementation of StackGhost is deficient in that it cannot guarantee the explicit detection of a stack exploit, it can only foil the operation of an exploit.
When the seperate return stack apparatus of StackGhost is fully implemented, StackGhost will offer guaranteed detection of the traditional buffer overflow at a fraction of the cost of the other available stack protection mechanisms.