Name
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
The kernel is the core of any operating system, and its security is of vital importance. A vulnerability, in any of its parts, compromises the whole system security model. Unprivileged users that find such vulnerabilities can easily crash the attacked system, or obtain administration privileges. In this paper we propose LynxFuzzer, a framework to test kernel extensions, i.e., the dynamically loadable components of Mac OS X kernel. To overcome the challenges posed by interacting with kernel-level software, LynxFuzzer includes a bare-metal hardware-assisted hypervisor, that allows to seamlessly inspect the state of a running kernel and its components. We implemented and evaluated LynxFuzzer on Mac OS X Mountain Lion and we obtained unexpected results: we indivuated 6 bugs in 17 kernel extensions we tested, thus proving the usefulness and effectiveness of our framework. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2014 | 10.1145/2592791.2592793 | EUROSEC |
Keywords | Field | DocType |
bare-metal hardware-assisted hypervisor,administration privilege,mac os x kernel,unexpected result,operating system,improving mac os x,whole system security model,mac os x mountain,dynamically loadable component,kernel extension,kernel-level software,gray box,industrial control systems | Kernel (linear algebra),Crash,Fuzz testing,Computer science,Computer security,Hypervisor,Industrial control system,Software,Gray box testing,OS X,Operating system,Embedded system | Conference |
Citations | PageRank | References |
1 | 0.63 | 5 |
Authors | ||
6 | ||
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stefano Bianchi Mazzone | 1 | 1 | 0.63 |
| Mattia Pagnozzi | 2 | 1 | 0.96 |
| Fattori, A. | 3 | 94 | 6.19 |
| Alessandro Reina | 4 | 21 | 2.01 |
| Andrea Lanzi | 5 | 845 | 40.99 |
| Danilo Bruschi | 6 | 771 | 70.35 |