CAREER: Countering Emerging Software Threats with Adaptive Hardening, Debloating, and Hardware-assisted Protection

职业：通过自适应强化、反膨胀和硬件辅助保护来应对新兴软件威胁

• 批准号: 2238467
• 负责人: Vasileios Kemerlis
• 金额: $ 66.01万
• 依托单位: Brown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-06-01 至 2028-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2238467&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Countering; Emerging; Software; Threats

Today's large and complex software systems are plagued with vulnerabilities that allow perpetrators to exploit it for profit. Of all the different kinds of exploitable software weaknesses, memory errors -- i.e., bugs that can be (ab)used by attackers, via crafty inputs, to corrupt or leak memory contents -- have been particularly pernicious to deal with. Developers and security engineers are unable to keep up with the sheer number of security errors (e.g., memory errors) being exploited that need patching. The focus of this project is on adapting software defenses to the specific deployment environment, as that environment changes due to new functionality and new threats. The project will produce open source prototypes of tools to automate the adaptation of defenses, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the defenses while radically reducing the human effort involved in defending against new threats as they arise. The objective is to enable more effective, sophisticated defenses by automating the customization of defenses to fit the deployment environments. The resulting techniques and tools will contribute to the next-generation security architecture that enables software defenses to be constantly in flux to provide robust software protection mechanisms. The project consists of three synergistic thrusts under the umbrella of adaptive security: adaptive hardening, hardware-assisted adaptive protection and adaptive debloating. The project will investigate techniques to enable software systems to dynamically adapt their defenses and functionality along several dimensions. Techniques for binary rewriting and program hardening will be enhanced to support adaptability. Adaptive hardening will equip binaries with rich metadata including call graphs and types. Static binary rewriting performs install-time, load-time, and runtime adaptations. Hardware-assisted adaptive hardening uses hardware features such as Intel's CET for adaptive hardening; Finally, unused code is removed by automating debloating. There are several benefits of an adaptive approach to software security. First, the capability to be agile in software hardening creates a diversified and unpredictable environment, which hinders the ability of adversaries to use canned recipes to bypass exploit mitigations. Second, hardening rectification allows software to make the best use of the hardening capabilities that a particular setting offers, while dynamically adapting the deployed defenses to meet changing needs. The outcomes of this research will improve the state-of-the-art in defense against emerging software threats, and alleviate the concerns of the broader security community regarding hurdles (e.g., performance, compatibility) that until now have prevented the deployment of protections with guaranteed security properties. The project will develop and share new knowledge through cybersecurity and computer science curricula, and more broadly thought workshops and seminars for high school students and science educators.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.

今天的大型和复杂的软件系统受到漏洞的困扰，这些漏洞允许犯罪者利用它来获利。在所有不同类型的可利用的软件弱点中，内存错误--即，攻击者可以通过巧妙的输入来利用这些漏洞来破坏或泄漏内存内容--处理这些漏洞尤其有害。开发人员和安全工程师无法跟上安全错误的数量（例如，内存错误）被利用，需要修补。 该项目的重点是使软件防御适应特定的部署环境，因为环境会因新功能和新威胁而发生变化。 该项目将产生开源工具原型，以自动适应防御，从而提高防御的有效性，同时从根本上减少防御新威胁所需的人力。 其目标是通过自动化自定义防御以适应部署环境来实现更有效、更复杂的防御。 由此产生的技术和工具将有助于下一代安全架构，使软件防御不断变化，以提供强大的软件保护机制。 该项目包括自适应安全保护伞下的三个协同推进：自适应加固，硬件辅助自适应保护和自适应解浮动。 该项目将研究技术，使软件系统能够动态地适应他们的防御和功能沿着几个方面。二进制重写和程序强化技术将得到增强，以支持适应性。 自适应强化将为二进制文件提供丰富的元数据，包括调用图和类型。静态二进制重写执行安装时、加载时和运行时自适应。硬件辅助自适应强化使用硬件功能，如英特尔的CET进行自适应强化;最后，通过自动解浮动删除未使用的代码。软件安全的自适应方法有几个好处。首先，在软件强化方面的敏捷能力创造了一个多样化和不可预测的环境，这阻碍了对手使用固定配方绕过漏洞利用缓解措施的能力。第二，强化纠正允许软件充分利用特定设置提供的强化功能，同时动态调整部署的防御以满足不断变化的需求。这项研究的成果将提高防御新兴软件威胁的最新技术水平，并减轻更广泛的安全社区对障碍的担忧（例如，性能、兼容性），直到现在还阻止了具有有保证的安全属性的保护的部署。该项目将通过网络安全和计算机科学课程开发和分享新知识，并为高中学生和科学教育工作者举办更广泛的思想研讨会和研讨会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。