Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2012-11
Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2012-114 Year 2012 Peer-reviewed
Web Security · Privacy

Dynamic Taint Tracking in Managed Runtimes

Benjamin Livshits
2012
Publication year
MSR Tech Report
Venue
Peer-reviewed
Type

Summary

Dynamic taint tracking is a widely used technique for detecting security vulnerabilities such as injection attacks and information leaks, but its application to managed runtime languages like JavaScript and Java presents unique challenges due to dynamic dispatch and automatic memory management. We present a taint tracking system for managed runtime environments that overcomes these challenges through a combination of runtime instrumentation and flow-sensitive shadow memory. Our system tracks taint propagation through complex operations including string manipulation, object serialization, and callback invocation. We evaluate the system on a benchmark suite of web application vulnerabilities, achieving 94% detection rate for injection vulnerabilities with a 15% runtime overhead.

Cite this paper — BibTeX
@InProceedings{dynamictainttrackingin,
  title = "{Dynamic Taint Tracking in Managed Runtimes}",
  author = "Benjamin Livshits",
  year = "2012",
  month = nov,
  booktitle = "Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2012-114",
}
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