"Dr. OS: Operating system analysis, debugging and security tools based on dynamic binary translation"

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Computer operating systems (OSs) provide vital services to user applications, including controlling the shared use of the physical computer hardware while hiding the complexity of physical device access and protecting applications (and by extention, the users) from unwanted access by other applications, whether accidental or malicious. Moreover, they must provide these services efficiently and constantly adapt to shifting physical hardware that must be managed and the changing demands of new classes of applications. It is not surprising to find that, like any large software project, operating systems contain bugs. However, due to the OS's privileged position, bugs in the OS can threaten the reliability and security of all applications and user data that have been entrusted to it. A greater surprise is the poor state of program development tools that are available to OS developers, in comparison to those widely used to improve the quality of user-level software applications. Dynamic binary translation (DBT) is a powerful technique that entails monitoring and potentially manipulating every instruction in an existing program binary just before its execution. In the past, it has been employed extensively to develop various analysis, bug-finding, and security tools for user-level application software. The use of these tools has greatly improved the performance, robustness, and security of the applications to which they have been applied. Unfortunately, such tools are currently not available for the OS since no comprehensive DBT framework exists for the OS kernel. Motivated by the ever-growing size and complexity of kernel code, the importance of its correctness for the overall robustness and security of the entire computer system, and the continued prevalence of kernel bugs despite advances in static bug-detection tools, we have recently developed an in-kernel DBT framework. Our research will enhance the performance of this framework and develop tools for kernel analysis, debugging, security auditing, and enforcement of security policies. Increasing the reliability and security of the OS, which supports all other user applications, will improve the overall trustworthiness of computer systems.