2026-09-18T18:55:42Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1059962026-06-06T00:55:48Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Howard Shrobe.
Kamolpornwijit, Witchakorn
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
2016-12-22T15:17:55Z
2016-12-22T15:17:55Z
2016
2016
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105996
965798306
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2016.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 104-112).
Buffer overflow is a well-known problem that remains a threat to software security. With the advancement of code-reuse attacks and return-oriented programming (ROP), it becomes problematic to protect a program from being compromised. Several defenses have been developed in an attempt to defeat code-reuse attacks. However, there is still no solution that provides complete protection with low overhead. In this thesis, we improved TAXI, a ROP defense technique that utilizes a tagged architecture to prevent memory violations. Inspired by Programmable Unit for Metadata Processing (PUMP), we modified TAXI so that enforcement policies can be programmed by user-level code and called it P-TAXI (Programmable TAXI). We demonstrated that, by using P-TAXI, we were able to enforce memory safety policies, including return address protection, stack garbage collection, and memory compartmentalization. In addition, we showed that P-TAXI can be used for debugging and taint tracking.
by Witchakorn Kamolpornwijit.
M.Eng.
112 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
P-TAXI : enforcing memory safety with programmable tagged architecture
Programmable TAXI : enforcing memory safety with programmable tagged architecture
Enforcing memory safety with programmable tagged architecture
Thesis
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<Abstract>Buffer overflow is a well-known problem that remains a threat to software security. With the advancement of code-reuse attacks and return-oriented programming (ROP), it becomes problematic to protect a program from being compromised. Several defenses have been developed in an attempt to defeat code-reuse attacks. However, there is still no solution that provides complete protection with low overhead. In this thesis, we improved TAXI, a ROP defense technique that utilizes a tagged architecture to prevent memory violations. Inspired by Programmable Unit for Metadata Processing (PUMP), we modified TAXI so that enforcement policies can be programmed by user-level code and called it P-TAXI (Programmable TAXI). We demonstrated that, by using P-TAXI, we were able to enforce memory safety policies, including return address protection, stack garbage collection, and memory compartmentalization. In addition, we showed that P-TAXI can be used for debugging and taint tracking.</Abstract>
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