



01715nas a2200181   4500008004100000245004900041210004900090260001400139300001200153490000600165520119200171653003801363653004301401100001401444700001901458700001901477856003701496       2023                        eng d00aFat Pointers for Temporal Memory Safety of C0 aFat Pointers for Temporal Memory Safety of C  c3/20/2023  a316-3470 v73 a<p>Temporal memory safety bugs, especially use-after-free and double free bugs, pose a major security threat to C programs. Real-world exploits utilizing these bugs enable attackers to read and write arbitrary memory locations, causing disastrous violations of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Many previous solutions retrofit temporal memory safety to C, but they all either incur high performance overhead and/or miss detecting certain types of temporal memory safety bugs.<br />In this paper, we propose a temporal memory safety solution that is both efficient and comprehensive. Specifically, we extend Checked C, a spatially-safe extension to C, with temporally-safe pointers. These are implemented by combining two techniques: fat pointers and dynamic key-lock checks. We show that the fat-pointer solution significantly improves running time and memory overhead compared to the disjoint-metadata approach that provides the same level of protection. With empirical program data and hands-on experience porting real-world applications, we also show that our solution is practical in terms of backward compatibility -- one of the major complaints about fat pointers.</p>10aCryptography and Security (cs.CR)10aFOS: Computer and information sciences1 aZhou, Jie1 aCriswell, John1 aHicks, Michael  uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2208.12900