Daniel M Luchaup

US Patent:

20100192026, Jul 29, 2010

Filed:

Jan 27, 2009

Appl. No.:

12/360259

Inventors:

Martin Abadi - Palo Alto CA, US
Ulfar Erlingsson - Reykjavik, IS
Daniel Luchaup - Madison WI, US
Marcus Peinado - Bellevue WA, US

Assignee:

MICROSOFT CORPORATION - Redmond WA

International Classification:

G06F 11/08

US Classification:

714 53, 714E1103

Abstract:

Runtime checks on a program may be used to determine whether a pointer points to a legitimate target before the pointer is dereferenced. Legitimate addresses, such as address-taken local variables (ATLVs), global variables, heap locations, functions, etc., are tracked, so that the legitimate targets of pointers are known. The program may be transformed so that, prior to dereferencing a pointer, the pointer is checked to ensure that it points to a legitimate address. If the pointer points to a legitimate address, then the dereferencing may proceed. Otherwise, an error routine may be invoked. One example way to keep track of legitimate addresses is to group address-taken variables together within a specific range or ranges of memory addresses, and to check that a pointer has a value within that range prior to dereferencing the pointer. However, addresses may be tracked in other ways.