Strata

From Dependability

A Portable Software Dynamic Translator

Contents 1 Research Summary 2 People 2.1 Principal Investigators 2.2 Staff 2.3 Students 2.4 Alumni 3 Papers 3.1 Strata Notes

Research Summary

Software dynamic translation (SDT) is a technology that permits the modification of an executing program's instructions. In recent years, SDT has received increased attention, from both industry and academia, as a feasible and effective approach to solving a variety of significant problems. Despite this increased attention, the task of initiating a new project in software dynamic translation remains a difficult one. To address this concern, and in particular, to promote the adoption of SDT technology into an even wider range of applications, we have implemented Strata, a cross-platform infrastructure for building software dynamic translators.

People

Principal Investigators

• Jack W. Davidson
• Bruce R. Childers
• Mary L. Soffa

Staff

• Mark W. Bailey
• Michele Co
• Clark L. Coleman
• Jason D. Hiser

Students

• Sudeep Ghosh
• Wei Hu
• Joy W. Kamunyori
• Daniel W. Williams

Alumni

• Michael Crane
• Adrian Filipi
• Kevin Scott

Papers

• Daniel Williams, Wei Hu, Jack W. Davidson, Jason D. Hiser, John C. Knight, and Anh Nguyen-Tuong

Security through Diversity: Leveraging Virtual Machine Technology

IEEE Security and Privacy, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 26-33, Jan./Feb. 2009

• Baiocchi, J., Childers, B. R., Davidson, J. W., Hiser, J. D., Misurda, J.

Fragment Cache Management for Dynamic Binary Translators in Embedded Systems with Scratchpad

Proceedings of the International Conference on Compilers, Architecture and Synthesis for Embedded Systems, October, 2007 (PDF)

• Jason D. Hiser, Daniel Williams, Wei Hu, Jack W. Davidson, Jason Mars, and Bruce R. Childers

Evaluating Indirect Branch Handling Mechanisms in Software Dynamic Translation Systems.

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO '07), March 11-14, 2007 (PDF)

• Benjamin Cox, David Evans, Adrian Filipi, Jonathan Rowanhill, Wei Hu, Jack Davidson, John Knight, Anh Nguyen-Tuong, and Jason Hiser

N-Variant Systems A Secretless Framework for Security through Diversity

15th USENIX Security Symposium Vancouver, BC (August 2006) (PDF)

• Hiser, J. D., Williams, D., Filipi, A., Davidson, and Childers, B

Evaluating Fragment Construction Policies for SDT Systems

Second International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments, June, 2006 (PDF)

• Wei Hu, Jason Hiser, Dan Williams, Adrian Filipi, Jack W. Davidson, David Evans, John C. Knight, Anh Nguyen-Tuong, Jonathan Rowanhill

Secure and Practical Defense Against Code-injection Attacks using Software Dynamic Translation

Second International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments, June 2006 (PDF, HTML)

• Naveen Kumar, Bruce R. Childers, Daniel Williams, Jack W. Davidson, and Mary Lou Soffa

Compile-Time Planning for Overhead Reduction in Software Dynamic Translation

Internation Journal of Parallel Programming (IJPP '05), June 2005 (PDF)

• K. Scott, N. Kumar, S. Velusamy, B. Childers, J.W. Davidson and M.L. Soffa

Retargetable and Reconfigurable Software Dynamic Translation

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO'03) (PDF)

Strata Notes

• Notes on using Strata