Adapter Synthesis: Synthesizing And Repairing Programs Using Scalable Symbolic Execution [thesis]
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Author

Vaibhav Sharma (Ph.D. 2020)

Abstract

Independently developed codebases typically contain many segments of code that perform the same or closely related operations (semantic clones). Finding functionally equivalent segments enables applications like replacing a segment by a more efficient or more secure alternative. Such related segments often have different interfaces, so some glue code (an adapter) is needed to replace one with the other. We present an algorithm that searches for replaceable code segments by attempting to synthesize an adapter between them from some finite family of adapters; it terminates if it finds no possible adapter. The use of symbolic execution during adapter search implicitly relies on being able to summarize the entire adapter into a single formula. Merging related execution paths is a powerful technique for reducing path explosion in symbolic execution. One approach, introduced and dubbed “veritesting” by Avgerinos et al., works by statically translating a bounded control flow region into a single formula. Java’s typed memory structure is very different from a binary, but we present an extension of previous path-merging approaches for symbolic execution of Java. Bugs in commercial software and third-party components are an undesirable and expensive phenomenon. Such software is usually released to users only in binary form. The lack of source code renders users of such software dependent on their software vendors for repairs of bugs. Such dependence is even more harmful if the bugs introduce new vulnerabilities in the software. Being able to automatically repair security bugs breaks this dependence and increases software robustness. In the third part of this dissertation, we present an automated program repair approach for binary code.

Link to full paper

Adapter Synthesis: Synthesizing And Repairing Programs Using Scalable Symbolic Execution

Keywords

symbolic execution, software engineering

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