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Refinement-Based CFG Reconstruction from Unstructured Programs

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Book cover Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 6538))

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of recovering a both safe and precise approximation of the Control Flow Graph (CFG) of an unstructured program, typically an executable file. The problem is tackled in an original way, with a refinement-based static analysis working over finite sets of constant values. Requirement propagation allows the analysis to automatically adjust the domain precision only where it is needed, resulting in precise CFG recovery at moderate cost. First experiments, including an industrial case study, show that the method outperforms standard analyses in terms of precision, efficiency or robustness.

Work partially funded by ANR (grants ANR-05-RNTL-02606 and ANR-08-SEGI-006).

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Bardin, S., Herrmann, P., Védrine, F. (2011). Refinement-Based CFG Reconstruction from Unstructured Programs. In: Jhala, R., Schmidt, D. (eds) Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation. VMCAI 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6538. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18275-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18275-4_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-18274-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-18275-4

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