Finding security bugs in web applications using domain-specific static analysis
Name
927410712-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
14.27 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aaf6f9c662bf7ac750fd9d64fb1fac3e
Author(s)
Near, Joseph P. (Joseph Paul)
Advisor(s)
Daniel Jackson.
Date Issued
2015
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis proposes new techniques for finding and eliminating application-specific bugs in web applications. We demonstrate three approaches to finding these bugs, each representing one position in the compromise between specificity and automation. All three are powered by a scalable symbolic execution specifically tailored to the structure of web application implementations, allowing analysis of even the largest real-world applications. In contrast to existing general-purpose verification approaches, this work was inspired by the hypothesis that narrowing our focus might produce more effective tools. Our approach has been to take advantage of properties specific to application-specific security bugs in web applications in order to produce more effective tools. The results suggest that focusing on a particular class of applications (web applications) and on a particular class of bugs (missing security checks) we can build static analysis tools that are both significantly more scalable and more automated than general-purpose bug-finding tools.
Description
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-133).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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