I-Corps: Utilization of Moving Target Defenses in Software Applications

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响集中在探索利用移动目标防御技术的主动纵深防御技术的转化。全球网络安全市场目前价值1240亿美元，预计未来5年的复合年增长率为8.7%。由于大多数解决方案侧重于监视和响应攻击，因此存在探索主动方法的机会。每个系统的相同软件实现表明，攻击者在一个程序中识别关键漏洞，可以利用这些知识来运行该程序的每个设备。这是计算机病毒执行背后的基本基础，也是网络间谍软件（如STUXNET和Pegasus）能够渗透和控制敏感系统的主要原因。在安全关键型应用中越来越多地使用物联网设备，不仅会泄露敏感数据（如患者记录和信用卡信息），还会造成更大规模的远程廉价网络恐怖活动的风险。I-Corps项目推进了新型网络安全系统的发展。利用安全关键软件的关键途径通常是基于堆栈的漏洞利用，最明显的是缓冲区溢出，这直接导致了60%以上的物联网设备攻击。任何基于堆栈的网络攻击成功的关键步骤是侦察。提出利用移动目标防御使应用程序的内部结构多样化，保证每个程序都有一个唯一的身份。具体来说，本项目提出通过利用堆栈分割、地址空间随机化、数据加密、功能改组、虚拟代码插入、堆栈金丝雀和变量混淆来减轻基于堆栈的漏洞。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is focused on exploring translation of proactive defense-in-depth technologies focused on leveraging moving target defense techniques. The global cybersecurity market is currently valued at $124 Billion with an estimated 8.7% CAGR over the next 5 years. Since most solutions focus on monitoring and reacting to attacks, an opportunity exists to explore a proactive approach. Identical software implementations for every system suggest that an attacker identifying critical vulnerabilities in one program can exploit this knowledge for every device running that program. This is the fundamental basis behind the execution of computer viruses, and the primary reason how cyber-espionage software, such as STUXNET and Pegasus, have been able to infiltrate and pivot within sensitive systems. The increased use of IoT devices in safety-critical applications creates risks beyond exfiltrating sensitive data, such as patient records and credit card information, to larger scale cyber-terrorist activities conducted remotely and inexpensively. This I-Corps project advances the development of new cybersecurity systems. The key avenue for exploiting safety-critical software is often stack-based exploits, most notably buffer overflows, which are directly responsible for over 60% of IoT device attacks. The key step for any stack-based cyber-attack to be successful is reconnaissance. The use of moving target defense to diversify the internal structure of applications is proposed, ensuring that every program will have a unique identity. Specifically, this project proposes mitigating stack-based vulnerabilities by utilizing stack segmentation, address space randomization, data encryption, function shuffling, dummy code insertion, stack canaries, and variable obfuscation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.