An Abstract Interpretation-Based Framework for Control Flow Reconstruction from Binaries

  • Authors:
  • Johannes Kinder;Florian Zuleger;Helmut Veith

  • Affiliations:
  • Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany 64289;Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany 64289 and Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany 85748;Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany 64289

  • Venue:
  • VMCAI '09 Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Due to indirect branch instructions, analyses on executables commonly suffer from the problem that a complete control flow graph of the program is not available. Data flow analysis has been proposed before to statically determine branch targets in many cases, yet a generic strategy without assumptions on compiler idioms or debug information is lacking. We have devised an abstract interpretation-based framework for generic low level programs with indirect jumps which safely combines a pluggable abstract domain with the notion of partial control flow graphs. Using our framework, we are able to show that the control flow reconstruction algorithm of our disassembly tool Jakstab produces the most precise overapproximation of the control flow graph with respect to the used abstract domain.