MEDS: The Memory Error Detection System

Abstract. Memory errors continue to be a major source of software failure. To address this issue, we present MEDS (Memory Error Detection System), a system for detecting memory errors within binary executables. The system can detect buffer overflow, uninitialized data reads, double-free, and deallocated memory access errors and vulnerabilities. It works by using static analysis to prove memory accesses safe. If a memory access cannot be proven safe, MEDS falls back to run-time analysis. The system exceeds previous work with dramatic reductions in false positives, as well as covering all memory segments (stack, static, heap).

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ESSOS
• Authors: Jason Hiser, Clark L. Coleman, Michele Co, Jack W. Davidson
• Keywords: ESSOS 2009, Memory Access, Memory Error Detection, Memory Errors, Software Engineering