Finding security bugs in web applications using domain-specific static analysis

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.

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

2015

Author dc:creator

• Near, Joseph P. (Joseph Paul)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Daniel Jackson.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• 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.

Licence dc:rights.uri

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

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99841

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/99841