Value-Range Analysis of C Programs: Towards Proving the Absence of Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities

by Axel Simon

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 0 shelved
Book cover for Value-Range Analysis of C Programs

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

Abu?erover?owoccurswheninputiswrittenintoamemorybu?erthatisnot large enough to hold the input. Bu?er over?ows may allow a malicious person to gain control over a computer system in that a crafted input can trick the defectiveprogramintoexecutingcodethatisencodedintheinputitself.They are recognised as one of the most widespread forms of security vulnerability, and many workarounds, including new processor features, have been proposed to contain the threat. This book describes a static analysis that aims to prove the absence of bu?er over?ows in C programs. The analysis is conservative in the sense that it locates every possible over?ow. Furthermore, it is fully automatic in that it requires no user annotations in the input program. Thekeyideaoftheanalysisistoinferasymbolicstateforeachp- gram point that describes the possible variable valuations that can arise at that point. The program is correct if the inferred values for array indices and pointer o?sets lie within the bounds of the accessed bu?er. The symbolic state consists of a ?nite set of linear inequalities whose feasible points induce a convex polyhedron that represents an approximation to possible variable valuations. The book formally describes how program operations are mapped to operations on polyhedra and details how to limit the analysis to those p- tionsofstructuresandarraysthatarerelevantforveri?cation.Withrespectto operations on string bu?ers, we demonstrate how to analyse C strings whose length is determined by anul character within the string.
  • ISBN13 9781848000162
  • Publish Date 26 June 2008 (first published 1 January 2008)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Springer London Ltd
  • Edition 2008 ed.
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 302
  • Language English