Back to results

Virginia Tech

Closure: Transforming Source Code for Faster Fuzzing

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Fuzzing, the method of generating inputs to run on a target program while monitoring its execution, is a widely adopted and pragmatic methodology for bug hunting as a means of software hardening. Technical improvements in throughput have shown to be critical to increasing the rate at which new bugs can be discovered time and time again. Persistent fuzzing, which keeps the fuzz target alive via looping, provides increased throughput at the cost for manual development of harnesses to account for invalid states and coverage of the programs code base, while relying on forking to reset the state accrued by looping over the same piece of code multiple times. Stale state can lead to wasted fuzzing efforts as certain areas of code may be conditionally ignored due to a stale global. I propose Closure, a toolset which enables programs to run at persistent speeds while avoiding the downsides of stale state and other bottlenecks associated with persistent fuzzing.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science and Applications
Department dc:contributor.department
Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2022

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Paterson, Ian G.
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Hicks, Matthew
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Tilevich, Eli
  • Cameron, Kirk W.

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:35021
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110361

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Paterson, Ian G.. Closure: Transforming Source Code for Faster Fuzzing. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/110361