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Systems Security

in ARM Binary

Kausika Manivannan

Dr. Sridhar & Dr. Ramaprasad

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Motivations

Analyze language-based security risks in systems software

Attackers exploit these weaknesses for wrongful activity
Syntax or semantics related errors

Develop strategies/solutions to improve security in these problem areas
Reason about systems languages by understanding the syntax and semantics of programming languages

Write your motivations here. Following are some sample questions to help organize your thoughts.

Why do you want to solve this problem?
What research gap you want to address?
How it would be beneficial to the research community?
What do you want to achieve through the completion of this project?
…

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Backgrounds

Technologies and concepts learned:

Prolog
IMP
Operational Semantics
LLVM

Understanding how programs behave is crucial for identifying security vulnerabilities.

Write the related and relevant background of your project here. This could be:

Concepts you had to learn
Tools you had to be familiar with
Relevant literatures you had to study

In order fully understand how the syntax and semantics behind programming languages work, I need to build a strong foundations.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been learning:

Prolog: is a logic based programming language that consists of rules and facts.
IMP: is an imperative programming language that follows the operation semantic structure
Operational Semantics: provides a framework for how programs operate. It falls into two categories: formal and informal semantics
LLVM: is a compiler infrastructure. It can be used to create compilers for many programming languages.

* Understanding how programs behave -> important to know when identifying security vulnerabilities

The example above is a prolog rule. It defines a predicate called add and takes in 3 arguments, X, Y, and Z. The rule states that Z = X + Y.

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Current Progress

Have a basic understanding in Prolog, IMP, and operational semantic theory.
I developed some programs that consists of:

creating lists
implementing loops
incorporating arithmetic expressions
defining facts and rule (the backbone of prolog syntax)

Developed Prolog interpreter that translates arithmetic and boolean IMP code into executable code

Write the current progress of your project here. This will essentially be the dissemination of your most recent progress with respect to the overall goal that you have set for your project by the end of semester.

IMP

Prolog

Operational Semantics

Developed Programs:

creating lists
implementing loops
incorporating arithmetic expressions
defining facts and rule (the backbone of prolog syntax)

Developed Prolog interpreter that translates arithmetic and boolean IMP code into executable code

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Future Plans

Develop my Prolog interpreter to include more predicates in my interpreter

Research formal semantics for LLVM

Write future plans regarding your project here. This would be a concise, dated outline of your future steps for the project. It is important to convey in this slide, very objective and attainable goals of your project that you plan to accomplish by the end of semester.

Detect security flaws in ARM binary code

Develop formal methods tools to ensure the safety of ARM binaries

Present

April 2024

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Thank You

Q & A