Galois, Inc.

Aaron Tomb

Lee Pike

Patrick Christopher Hickey

Eric Mertens

M Isaac Jones

David W Archer

Jonathan T Daugherty

Joseph Hurd

Various technologies related to control flow integrity checking are described herein and can be used to greatly improve software security. During static analysis, a canonical control flow graph can be built. Execution of a program can be interrupted at runtime, and the call stack can be observed to verify control flow integrity of the program using the canonical control flow graph. Attacks using stack tampering can be avoided, regardless of how the stack tampering is achieved. Non-invasive techniques can be used, making the technologies applicable in situations where source code is not available. Real-time operating system protection can be supported.

Software security via control flow integrity checking

Sets of multiple software programs selected from a set of candidate software programs are evaluated to determine if the applications can collude to violate a security policy and exhibit other undesirable properties. Intra- and inter-application data and control flows can be stored and newly introduced applications assessed based on stored data and control flows. An application provider can certify sets of applications as satisfying a security policy based on consideration of inter-application flows.

Programmatically detecting collusion-based security policy violations

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Portland, OR, United States of America

Aaron Tomb