Security of multithreaded programs by compilation

Abstract

Information security is a pressing challenge for mobile code technologies. In order to claim end-to-end security of mobile code, it is necessary to establish that the code neither intentionally nor accidentally propagates sensitive information to an adversary. Although mobile code is commonly multithreaded low-level code, the literature is lacking enforcement mechanisms that ensure information security for such programs. This paper offers a modular solution to the security of multithreaded programs. The modularity is three-fold: we give modular extensions of sequential semantics, sequential security typing, and sequential security-type preserving compilation that allow us enforcing security for multithreaded programs. Thanks to the modularity, there are no more restrictions on multithreaded source programs than on sequential ones, and yet we guarantee that their compilations are provably secure for a wide class of schedulers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.