As-If Infinitely Ranged Integer Model

November 1, 2010 • Presentation

By

Roger Dannenberg (School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University), Thomas Plum (Plum Hall, Inc.), Will Dormann, David Keaton, Robert C. Seacord, David Svoboda, Alex Volkovitsky, and Timothy Wilson

This ISSRE 2010 paper describes the AIR Integer model for eliminating vulnerabilities resulting from integer overflow, truncation, and unanticipated wrapping.

Publisher

IEEE

Subjects

Secure Coding Secure Development

Abstract

Integers represent a growing and underestimated source of vulnerabilities in C and C++ programs. In this paper, given at the 21st annual International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2010), the authors present the As-if Infinitely Ranged (AIR) Integer model for eliminating vulnerabilities resulting from integer overflow, truncation, and unanticipated wrapping.

The AIR Integer model either produces a value equivalent to that obtained using infinitely ranged integers or results in a runtime-constraint violation. With the exception of wrapping (which is optional), this model can be implemented by a C99-conforming compiler and used by the programmer with little or no change to existing source code. Fuzz testing of libraries that have been compiled using a prototype AIR integer compiler has been effective in discovering vulnerabilities in software with low false positive and false negative rates. Furthermore, the runtime overhead of the AIR Integer model is low enough that typical applications can enable it in deployed systems for additional runtime protection.

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Software Engineering Institute