AFLPro: Direction sensitive fuzzing. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ji, Tiantian; Wang, Zhongru; Tian, Zhihong; Fang, Binxing; Ruan, Qiang; Wang, Haichen; Shi, Wei
• Is Part Of: Journal of information security and applications. Volume 54(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: Automated binary fuzzing -- Direction sensitive fuzzing -- Basic block aggregation -- Seed selection -- Seed energy scheduling -- Static analysis; Computer security -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Security measures -- Periodicals; 005.805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jisa.2020.102497
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2214-2126

Abstract

Abstract: Fuzzing is a simple and popular technique that has been widely used to detect vulnerabilities in software. However, due to its blind mutation, fuzzing brings many limitations. First, it is difficult for fuzzing to pass the sanity checks, which makes fuzzing unable to target vulnerability or crash locations effectively. Secondly, blind mutation limits the diversity of seed generation and makes it difficult for the fuzzing process to achieve convergence. In this paper, we propose a direction sensitive fuzzing solution AFLPro. On the one hand, it focuses on seed selection, using a new fuzzing scheme based on Basic Block Aggregation (BBA), which reduces the possibility of seed selection in the wrong direction. By applying a multi-dimensional oriented seed selection strategy, it achieves fine-grained seed selection. On the other hand, based on biological evolution, AFLPro optimizes genetic variation to ensure the diversity of seed varieties and the convergence of fuzzing tests. Besides, AFLPro also incorporates lightweight static analysis to obtain information about the target program (this paper only studies closed source programs), providing complete semantic guidance for fuzzing through resource integration. We implemented a prototype of AFLPro based on the popular fuzzer AFL. We evaluated it on three datasets: DARPA Grand Challenges (CGC), LAVA-M dataset, and a set of real-world applications. The results show that in 92% of all three datasets, AFLPro exhibits better vulnerability detection capabilities than all of the state-of-the-art fuzzers mentioned in this paper.