A tool-assisted framework for certified bytecode verification

Abstract

Bytecode verification is a key security function in several architectures for mobile and embedded code, including Java, JavaCard, and .NET. Over the last few years, its formal correctness has been studied extensively by academia and industry, using general purpose theorem provers. Yet a recent roadmap on smartcard research [1], and a recent survey of the field of Java verification [11], point to a severe lack of methodologies, techniques and tools to help such formal endeavours. In earlier work, we have developed, and partly automated, a methodology to establish the correctness of static analyses similar to by tecode verification. The purpose of this paper is to complete the automation process by certifying the different dataflow analyses involved in bytecode verification, using the Coq proof assistant. It enables us to derive automatically, from a reference virtual machine that performs verification at run-time, and satisfies minimal requirements, a provably correct bytecode verifier. © Springer-Verlag 2004.