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Adoption Challenges of Code Randomization

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Michael FranzAuthors Info & Claims

MTD'20: Proceedings of the 7th ACM Workshop on Moving Target Defense

Pages 45 - 49

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411496.3421226

Published: 09 November 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Languages in the C family are distinguished by their efficiency, maturity, and their lack of guardrails compared to other mainstream language in use today. Their efficiency properties kept these languages relevant as new ones appeared. Their lack of memory safety and the resulting vulnerabilities is an ongoing challenge.

Code randomization, a moving target defense technique, is one among many competing answers to this challenge. Many techniques have been proposed and evaluated extensively in academic conferences but adoption in the field is lagging. The goal of this paper is to highlight why adoption is so hard and what can be done about it. Code randomization techniques offer much flexibility in their design and implementation. We encourage research that investigates the complex trade-offs between security and many equally important concerns that must be made for enhanced code randomization defenses to make their way into production.

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Cited By

Li YChung YBao YLu YGuo SLin G(2022)KPointer: Keep the code pointers on the stack point to the right codeComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2022.102781(102781)Online publication date: Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2022.102781
Okhravi H(2022)Moving Target DefenseEncyclopedia of Cryptography, Security and Privacy10.1007/978-3-642-27739-9_1770-1(1-4)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27739-9_1770-1
Wang JPang JShan ZWei JYao JLiu F(2021)A Software Diversity-Based Lab in Operating System for Cyber Security Students2021 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Computer Science and Educational Informatization (CSEI)10.1109/CSEI51395.2021.9477732(296-299)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSEI51395.2021.9477732

Index Terms

Adoption Challenges of Code Randomization
1. Security and privacy
  1. Software and application security
  2. Systems security
    1. Operating systems security

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

MTD'20: Proceedings of the 7th ACM Workshop on Moving Target Defense

November 2020

96 pages

ISBN:9781450380850

DOI:10.1145/3411496

Program Chairs:
Hamed Okhravi
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
,
Cliff Wang
US Army Research Office

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 November 2020

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United States Office of Naval Research

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CCS '20

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CCS '20: 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security

November 9, 2020

Virtual Event, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 40 of 92 submissions, 43%

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Cited By

Li YChung YBao YLu YGuo SLin G(2022)KPointer: Keep the code pointers on the stack point to the right codeComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2022.102781(102781)Online publication date: Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2022.102781
Okhravi H(2022)Moving Target DefenseEncyclopedia of Cryptography, Security and Privacy10.1007/978-3-642-27739-9_1770-1(1-4)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27739-9_1770-1
Wang JPang JShan ZWei JYao JLiu F(2021)A Software Diversity-Based Lab in Operating System for Cyber Security Students2021 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Computer Science and Educational Informatization (CSEI)10.1109/CSEI51395.2021.9477732(296-299)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSEI51395.2021.9477732

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