An overview of a proof-based approach to detecting C vulnerabilities

• Authors: Amel Mammar
• Venue: Proceedings of the 2011 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
• Year: 2011

This paper gives an overview of a formal approach for detecting vulnerabilities in C programs using the B formal method. Vulnerabilities denote faults that may be introduced unintentionally into programs making them behave incorrectly. Such faults (or programing errors) may lead to unpredictable behavior and even worse well-motivated attackers may exploit them later to cause real damages. Basically, the proposed approach consists in translating the vulnerable aspects of a C program into a B specification. On this B specification proof and model checking activities are performed in order to detect the presence or absence of vulnerabilities. Compared to the existing vulnerability detection techniques, a proof-based approach permits to eliminate false alarms and denial of service attacks.