2026-09-18T18:20:21Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1286272026-06-06T00:48:38Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Howard Shrobe, Hamed Okhravi, and Nathan Burow.
Switzer, Jennifer F.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
2020-11-24T17:31:54Z
2020-11-24T17:31:54Z
2020
2020
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128627
1204268766
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, May, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 55-60).
Type-safe languages undertake to prevent the type confusion vulnerabilities that arise in type-unsafe languages such as C++. One such type-safe language is Rust, which provides powerful type safety guarantees [1]. However, these guarantees are valid only for a single compilation unit. That is, they may not hold when multiple separately compiled processes communicate. In this work, we explore how type confusion vulnerabilities can still arise when multiple separately compiled, internally type-safe processes share information through inter-process communication (IPC). We propose safeIPC, a tool for eliminating IPC-facilitated type confusion in Rust. safeIPC is a Rust compiler extension that detects communications over IPC and inserts runtime checks to ensure that type safety is maintained. Programs instrumented with safeIPC throw a runtime error if the type of any data received over IPC is not equivalent to the type expected. Our analysis shows that safeIPC is effective in preventing type confusion vulnerabilities not prevented by Rust alone.
by Jennifer F. Switzer.
M.Eng.
M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
60 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Preventing IPC-facilitated type confusion in Rust
Thesis
application/pdf
2020-11-24T17:31:54Z
Publication
Master
EECS
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>Type-safe languages undertake to prevent the type confusion vulnerabilities that arise in type-unsafe languages such as C++. One such type-safe language is Rust, which provides powerful type safety guarantees [1]. However, these guarantees are valid only for a single compilation unit. That is, they may not hold when multiple separately compiled processes communicate. In this work, we explore how type confusion vulnerabilities can still arise when multiple separately compiled, internally type-safe processes share information through inter-process communication (IPC). We propose safeIPC, a tool for eliminating IPC-facilitated type confusion in Rust. safeIPC is a Rust compiler extension that detects communications over IPC and inserts runtime checks to ensure that type safety is maintained. Programs instrumented with safeIPC throw a runtime error if the type of any data received over IPC is not equivalent to the type expected. Our analysis shows that safeIPC is effective in preventing type confusion vulnerabilities not prevented by Rust alone.</Abstract>
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