Hybrid Monitoring of Attacker Knowledge

International audienceEnforcement of noninterference requires proving that an attacker's knowledge about the initial state remains the same after observing a program's public output. We propose a hybrid monitoring mechanism which dynamically evaluates the knowledge that is contained in program variables. To get a precise estimate of the knowledge, the monitor statically analyses non-executed branches. We show that our knowledge-based monitor can be combined with existing dynamic monitors for non-interference. A distinguishing feature of such a combination is that the combined monitor is provably more permissive than each mechanism taken separately. We demonstrate this by proposing a knowledge-enhanced version of a no-sensitive-upgrade (NSU) monitor. The monitor and its static analysis have been formalized and proved correct within the Coq proof assistant

Vers l’établissement du flux d’information sûr dans les applications Web côté client

In this thesis, we address the issue of enforcing confidentiality and integrity policies in the context of client-side Web applications. Since most Web applications are developed in the JavaScript programming language, we study static, dynamic, and hybrid enforcement mechanisms for securing information flow in Core JavaScript --- a fragment of JavaScript that retains its defining features. Specifically, we propose: a monitored semantics for dynamically enforcing secure information flow in Core JavaScript as well as a source-to-source transformation that inlines the proposed monitor, a type system that statically checks whether or not a program abides by a given information flow policy, and a hybrid type system that combines static and dynamic analyses in order to accept more secure programs than its fully static counterpart. Most JavaScript programs are designed to be executed in a browser in the context of a Web page. These programs often interact with the Web page in which they are included via a large number of external APIs provided by the browser. The execution of these APIs usually takes place outside the perimeter of the language. Hence, any realistic analysis of client-side JavaScript must take into account possible interactions with external APIs. To this end, we present a general methodology for extending security monitors to take into account the possible invocation of arbitrary APIs and we apply this methodology to a representative fragment of the DOM Core Level 1 API that captures DOM-specific information flows.Nous nous intéressons à la mise en œuvre des politiques de confidentialité et d'intégrité des données dans le contexte des applications Web côté client. Étant donné que la plupart des applications Web est développée en JavaScript, on propose des mécanismes statiques, dynamiques et hybrides pour sécuriser le flux d'information en Core JavaScript - un fragment de JavaScript qui retient ses caractéristiques fondamentales. Nous étudions en particulier: une sémantique à dispositif de contrôle afin de garantir dynamiquement le respect des politiques de sécurité en Core JavaScript aussi bien qu'un compilateur qui instrumente un programme avec le dispositif de contrôle proposé, un système de types qui vérifie statiquement si un programme respecte une politique de sécurité donnée, un système de types hybride qui combine des techniques d'analyse statique à des techniques d'analyse dynamique afin d'accepter des programmes surs que sa version purement statique est obligée de rejeter. La plupart des programmes JavaScript s'exécute dans un navigateur Web dans le contexte d'une page Web. Ces programmes interagissent avec la page dans laquelle ils sont inclus parmi des APIs externes fournies par le navigateur. Souvent, l'exécution d'une API externe dépasse le périmètre de l'interprète du langage. Ainsi, une analyse réaliste des programmes JavaScript côté client doit considérer l'invocation potentielle des APIs externes. Pour cela, on présente une méthodologie générale qui permet d'étendre des dispositifs de contrôle de sécurité afin qu'ils prennent en compte l'invocation potentielle des APIs externes et on applique cette méthodologie à un fragment important de l'API DOM Core Level 1

Monitoring and Enforcement of Safety Hyperproperties

Certain important security policies such as information flow characterize system-wide behaviors and are not properties of individual executions. It is known that such security policies cannot be expressed in trace-based specification languages such as linear-time temporal logic (LTL). However, formalisms such as hyperproperties and the associated logic HyperLTL allow us to specify such policies. In this thesis, we concentrate on the static enforcement and runtime verification of safety hyperproperties expressed in HyperLTL. For static enforcement of safety hyperproperties, we incorporate program repair techniques, where an input program is modified to satisfy certain properties while preserving its existing specifications. Assuming finite state space for the input program, we show that the complexity of program repair for safety hyperproperties is in general NP-hard. However, there are certain cases in which the problem can be solved in polynomial time. We identify such cases and give polynomial-time algorithms for them. In the context of runtime verification, we make two contributions: we (1) analyze the complexity of decision procedures for verifying safety hyperproperties, (2) provide a syntactic fragment in HyperLTL to express certain k-safety hyperproperties, and (3) develop a general runtime verification technique for HyperLTL k-safety formulas, for cases where verification at run time can be done in polynomial time. Our technique is based on runtime formula progression as well as on-the-fly monitor synthesis across multiple executions

Enforcing information-flow policies by combining static and dynamic analyses

Tableau d'honneur de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales, 2018-2019Le contrôle de flot d’information est une approche prometteuse permettant aux utilisateurs decontrôler comment une application utilise leurs informations confidentielles. Il reste toutefois plusieurs défis à relever avant que cette approche ne puisse être utilisée par le grand public. Plus spécifiquement, il faut que ce soit efficace, facile à utiliser, que ça introduise peu de surcharge à l’exécution, et que ça fonctionne sur des applications et langages réels. Les contributions présentées dans cette thèse nous rapprochent de ces buts. Nous montrons qu’une combinaison d’analyse statique et dynamique permet d’augmenter l’efficacité d’un mécanisme de contrôle de flot d’information tout en minimisant la surcharge introduite. Notre méthode consiste en trois étapes : (1) à l’aide d’analyse statique, vérifier que le programme ne contient pas de fuites d’information évidentes; (2) instrumenter l’application (c.-à-d., insérer des commandes) pour prévenir les fuites d’information confidentielles à l’exécution; (3) évaluer partiellement le programme pour diminuer l’impact de l’instrumentation sur le temps d’exécution. Pour aider les utilisateurs à identifier les applications qui sont les plus susceptibles de faire fuirde l’information confidentielle (c.à.d., les applications malicieuses), nous avons développé un outil de détection de maliciel pour Android. Il a une précision de 94% et prend moins d’une seconde pour effectuer son analyse.Pour permettre aux utilisateurs de prioriser l’utilisation de ressources pour protéger l’information provenant de certaines sources, nous introduisons le concept defading labels. Pour permettre aux chercheurs de développer plus facilement et rapidement des mécanismes de contrôle de flot d’informations fiables, nous avons développé un outil permettant de générer automatiquement la spécification d’un mécanisme à partir de la spécification d’un langage de programmation. Pour permettre aux chercheurs de plus facilement communiquer leurs preuves écrites en Coq, nous avons développé un outil permettant de générer des versions en langue naturelle de preuves Coq.Information-flow control is a promising approach that enables users to track and control how applications use their sensitive information. However, there are still many challenges to be addressed before it can be used by mainstream users. Namely, it needs to be effective, easy to use, lightweight, and support real applications and languages. The contributions presented in this thesis aim to bring us closer to these goals. We show that a combination of static and dynamic analysis can increase the overall effectiveness of information-flow control without introducing too much overhead. Our method consists of three steps: (1) using static analysis, we verify that the program does not contain anyobvious information leaks; (2) we instrument the program to prevent less obvious leaks from occurring at runtime; (3) we partially evaluate the program to minimize the instrumentation’simpact on execution time. We present a static-based malware detection tool for Android that allows users to easily identify the applications that are most likely to leak sensitive information (i.e., maliciousapplications). It boasts an accuracy of 94% and takes less than a second to perform its analysis. We introduce the concept of fading-labels, which allows information-flow control mechanisms to prioritize the usage of resources to track information from certain sources. We present a tool that can, given a programming language’s specification, generate information-flow control mechanism specifications. This should allow researchers to more easily develop information-flow control mechanisms. Finally, we present a tool that can generate natural-language versions of Coq proofs so that researchers may more easily communicate their Coq proofs

Inline and Sideline Approaches for Low-cost Memory Safety in C

System languages such as C or C++ are widely used for their high performance, however the allowance of arbitrary pointer arithmetic and type cast introduces a risk of memory corruptions. These memory errors cause unexpected termination of programs, or even worse, attackers can exploit them to alter the behavior of programs or leak crucial data. Despite advances in memory safety solutions, high and unpredictable overhead remains a major challenge. Accepting that it is extremely difficult to achieve complete memory safety with the performance level suitable for production deployment, researchers attempt to strike a balance between performance, detection coverage, interoperability, precision, and detection timing. Some properties are much more desirable, e.g. the interoperability with pre-compiled libraries. Comparatively less critical properties are sacrificed for performance, for example, tolerating longer detection delay or narrowing down detection coverage by performing approximate or probabilistic checking or detecting only certain errors. Modern solutions compete for performance. The performance matrix of memory safety solutions have two major assessment criteria – run-time and memory overheads. Researchers trade-off and balance performance metrics depending on its purpose or placement. Many of them tolerate the increase in memory use for better speed, since memory safety enforcement is more desirable for troubleshooting or testing during development, where a memory resource is not the main issue. Run-time overhead, considered more critical, is impacted by cache misses, dynamic instructions, DRAM row activations, branch predictions and other factors. This research proposes, implements, and evaluates MIU: Memory Integrity Utilities containing three solutions – MemPatrol, FRAMER and spaceMiu. MIU suggests new techniques for practical deployment of memory safety by exploiting free resources with the following focuses: (1) achieving memory safety with overhead < 1% by using concurrency and trading off prompt detection and coverage; but yet providing eventual detection by a monitor isolation design of an in-register monitor process and the use of AES instructions (2) complete memory safety with near-zero false negatives focusing on eliminating overhead, that hardware support cannot resolve, by using a new tagged-pointer representation utilising the top unused bits of a pointer.Research Foundation of Kore

Quantifying and Predicting the Influence of Execution Platform on Software Component Performance

The performance of software components depends on several factors, including the execution platform on which the software components run. To simplify cross-platform performance prediction in relocation and sizing scenarios, a novel approach is introduced in this thesis which separates the application performance profile from the platform performance profile. The approach is evaluated using transparent instrumentation of Java applications and with automated benchmarks for Java Virtual Machines

Towards an embedded real-time Java virtual machine

Most computers today are embedded, i.e. they are built into some products or system that is not perceived as a computer. It is highly desirable to use modern safe object-oriented software techniques for a rapid development of reliable systems. However, languages and run-time platforms for embedded systems have not kept up with the front line of language development. Reasons include complex and, in some cases, contradictory requirements on timing, concurrency, predictability, safety, and flexibility. A carefully tailored Java virtual machine (called IVM) is proposed as an approach to overcome these difficulties. In particular, real-time garbage collection has been considered an essential part. The set of bytecodes has been revised to require less memory and to facilitate predictable execution. To further reduce the memory footprint, the class loader can be located outside the embedded processor. Since the accomplished concurrency is crucial for the function of many embedded applications, the scheduling can be defined on the application level in Java. Finally considering future needs for flexibility and on-line configuration of embedded system, the IVM has a unique structure with which, for instance, methods being objects that can be replaced and GCed. The approach has been experimentally verified by a full prototype implementation of such a virtual machine. By making the prototype available for development of real products, this in turn has confronted the solutions with real industrial demands. It was found that the IVM can be easily integrated in typical systems today and the mentioned requirements are fulfilled. Based on experiences from more than 10 projects utilising the novel Java-oriented techniques, there are reasons to believe that the proposed approach is very promising for future flexible embedded systems