TGRop: Top Gun of Return-Oriented Programming Automation

Nanyu Zhong, Yueqi Chen, Yanyan Zou, Xinyu Xing, Jinwei Dong, Bingcheng Xian, Jiaxu Zhao, Menghao Li, Binghong Liu, Wei Huo

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Given the prevalence of Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) in exploitation, automating ROP has become a cornerstone of security research and education. Many security measures are evaluated against and thus restricted by the practical capability of ROP. However, the ROP automation state-of-the-art approaches have fundamental limitations in their gadget utilization and fall short of delivering the promise. To overcome these fundamental limitations, we design and implement TGRop which advances ROP automation to a new level. TGRop can leverage gadgets that operate memory and perform complex arithmetic calculations. By breaking down the entire computation into sub-goals, TGRop effectively reduces search space and thus maximizes the utility of the SAT/SMT solver. More importantly, TGRop employs a systematic approach to resolving data dependencies and eliminating side effects. Our thorough measurement shows that TGRop outperforms all existing approaches by more than 1.62–3.11 times. Additionally, we validate the rationale behind its design via analytical experiments. When running TGRop against the newest ROP mitigations, we discovered their weaknesses and reported to vendors.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationComputer Security – ESORICS 2024 - 29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, Proceedings
EditorsJoaquin Garcia-Alfaro, Rafał Kozik, Michał Choraś, Sokratis Katsikas
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages130-152
Number of pages23
ISBN (Print)9783031708954
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024
Event29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2024 - Bydgoszcz, Poland
Duration: Sep 16 2024Sep 20 2024

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume14984 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2024
Country/TerritoryPoland
CityBydgoszcz
Period9/16/249/20/24

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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