Static Checking of Array Index Out-of-Bounds Defects in C Programs Based on Taint Analysis

Abstract

During the rapid development of mobile computing, IoT, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, etc, many new programming languages and compilers are emerging. Even so, C/C++ language is still one of the most popular languages. And array is one of the most important data structures of C language. It is necessary to check whether the index is within the boundary of the array when using it to access the element of an array in a program. Otherwise, array index out-of-bounds will happen unexpectedly. When there are array index out-of-bounds defects existing in programs, some serious errors may occur during execution, such as system crash. It is even worse that array index out-of-bounds defects open the doors for attackers to take control of the server and execute arbitrary malicious code by carefully constructing input and intercepting the control flow of the programs. Existing static methods for array boundary checking cannot ∗ 基金项目: 国家重点研发计划(2017YFA0700604); 南京大学优秀博士研究生创新能力提升计划 B; 江苏省研究生科研与实践