Virtualization and Static Analysis to Detect Memory Overwriting Vulnerabilities

Memory overwriting vulnerabilities (buffer overflow, format string, double free, integer overflow, etc.) continue to plague commercial and government software, providing avenues for attackers to gain unauthorized control over computer systems. Testing tools are needed that will find vulnerabilities so that fixes can be applied before deployment. Existing vulnerability analyses often rely exclusively on either static or dynamic analysis tools, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses. Many defenses require source code for the application being tested, which is not practical for final acceptance testing by software consumers, who are often not allowed access to the source code of the software vendor. The proposed research will enhance and integrate prior static and dynamic analysis tools to enable software producers and consumers to accomplish two important objectives: (1) To strengthen software testing with respect to exercising potentially vulnerable code, and (2) to identify and fix memory overwriting vulnerabilities before software deployment. Only the binary form of the tested software will be needed. The result of the eventual Phase II effort will be an acceptance testing tool that will be commercialized for Linux and Windows systems.