Improving security at the system-call boundary in a type-safe operating system

Historically, most approaches to operating sytems security aim to either protect the kernel (e.g., the MMU) or protect user applications (e.g., W [symbol] X). However, little study has been done into protecting the boundary between these layers. We describe a vulnerability in Tock, a type-safe operating system, at the system-call boundary. We then introduce a technique for providing memory safety at the boundary between userland and the kernel in Tock. We demonstrate that this technique works to prevent against the aforementioned vulnerability and a class of similar vulnerabilities, and we propose how it might be used to protect against simliar vulnerabilities in other operating systems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Weisblat, Jakob H.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Howard Shrobe, Hamed Okhravi and Bryan Ward.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121686

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/121686