A typed assembly language for confidentiality

Abstract

Language-based information-flow analysis is promising in protecting data confidentiality. Although much work has been carried out in this area, relatively little has been done for assembly code. Source-level techniques do not easily generalize to assembly code, because assembly code does not readily present certain abstraction about the program structure that is crucial to information-flow analysis. Nonetheless, low-level information-flow analysis is desirable, because it yields a small trusted computing base. Furthermore, many (untrusted) applications are distributed in native code; their verification should not be overlooked. We present a simple yet effective solution for this problem. Our observation is that the missing abstraction in assembly code can be restored using annotations. Following the philosophy of certifying compilation, these annotations are generated by a compiler, used for static validation, and erased before execution. In particular, we propose a type system for low-level information-flow analysis. Our system is compatible with Typed Assembly Language, and models key features including a call stack, memory tuples and first-class code pointers. A noninterference theorem articulates that well-typed programs respect confidentiality. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.