Computer Science

Computer Science ›› 2025, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (7): 379-387.doi: 10.11896/jsjkx.240800052

• Information Security • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Accelerating Firmware Vulnerability Discovery Through Precise Localization of IntermediateTaint Sources and Dangerous Functions

ZHANG Guanghua1,2, CHEN Fang1, CHANG Jiyou1, HU Boning1, WANG He2   

  1. 1 School of Information Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang 050018, China
    2 School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, China
  • Received:2024-08-08 Revised:2024-11-07 Published:2025-07-17
  • About author:ZHANG Guanghua,born in 1979,Ph.D,professor,master supervisor,is a member of CCF(No.51334S).His main research interest is network and information security.
    HU Boning,born in 1978,master,lecturer.Her main research interest is communication network security.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(62072239,62372236) and Postgraduate Innovation Fund Project of Hebei Province(CXZZSS2025076).

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Abstract: Existing methods aim to accurately identify the starting points of taint analysis by recognizing intermediate taint sources and filter safe command hijacking points in certain cases to streamline endpoint analysis,thus reducing the paths to be analyzed and shortening vulnerability mining time.However,these methods spend excessive time identifying intermediate taint sources and fail to fully filter safe dangerous function call points,leading to prolonged overall vulnerability mining times.The ALTSDF scheme addresses these issues by accurately identifying intermediate taint sources and dangerous function locations.To quickly and accurately identify intermediate taint source as the starting point for taint analysis,it collects the parameter strings used at different call sites of each function to form its parameter string set.We then calculate the proportion of this set that overlaps with the shared keyword set.Functions are ranked in descending order of this proportion－the higher the proportion,the more likely the function is an intermediate taint source.When filtering safe dangerous function call points,it statically back-traces parameter types to exclude points where the parameter source is a constant,thus avoiding safe command hijacking and buffer overflow points.To reduce the time spent identifying intermediate taint sources,minimize taint propagation paths to dangerous function calls,and shorten the analysis time,thus speeding up vulnerability discovery.Testing on embedded Web programs in 21 real device firmwares show that ALTSDF significantly reduces the time spent on intermediate taint source inference compared to the FITS tool.It also reduces the taint analysis path by 8% compared to CINDY and ultimately reduces vulnerability mining time by 32% compared to the combined solution of SaTC with FITS and CINDY.These results demonstrate that ALTSDF acce- lerates the identification of vulnerabilities in firmware embedded Web programs.

Key words: IoT security, Static detection of firmware vulnerabilities, Taint analysis, Intermediate taint source

CLC Number: 

  • TP309
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