TC: Small: Collaborative Research: Securing Multilingual Software Systems

Most real software systems consist of modules developed in

multiple programming languages. Different languages differ in their

security assumptions and guarantees. Consequently, even if single

modules are secure in some language model and with respect to some

security policy, there is usually no uniform security guarantee on a

whole multilingual system. This project focuses on low-overhead

techniques for providing security guarantees to software systems in

which type-safe languages such as Java interoperate with native code.

Native code is developed in low-level languages including C, C++, and

assembly languages. Although often used in software projects, native

code is notoriously insecure and is a rich source of security

vulnerabilities. The PIs are developing a two-layered approach to

alleviating security threats posed by native code to type-safe

languages: (1) Binary rewriting tools and their verifiers are being

incorporated into the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for rewriting and

verifying native modules at the machine-instruction level to enforce

security policies; (2) A safe dialect of C for interoperation with

Java is being designed; with the help of programmer annotations, the

safety of programs in this dialect can be statically verified. The

outcome of this project will enable popular platforms such as the JVM

and .NET and other major programming languages (e.g., Python, OCaml,

etc.) to incorporate native modules safely. The developed principles

will also be applicable to web browsers and operating systems in which

there is a need of extending them with untrusted low-level modules

without comprising host security.