Securing Untrusted Code
via Compiler-Agnostic Binary Rewriting
Richard Wartell, Vishwath Mohan, Kevin W. Hamlen, Zhiqiang Lin
Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Dallas
800 W. Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX, 75080
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REINS secures untrusted x86 native code without requiring source, metadata(IRM), or specialized infrastructure(VM). It enforces security by partitioning instructions into aligned chunks, protecting indirect control-flow transfers with bit-masking guards, and mediating API calls. It maintains high efficiency with only a 2.4% average runtime overhead while ensuring safety through an independent, machine-verifiable certification process.
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Limitations
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Reliance on Imperfect Disassembly Heuristics REINS depends on imperfect disassembly heuristics to manage complex features like position-independent code (PIC) and callbacks.
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Dependency on Standard Code Generation Conventions Custom control-flow or manual address calculations are incompatible and prone to runtime failure.
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Coarse-grained Control-flow Enforcement Protecting external system resources through chunk and mediation rather than enforcing fine-grained, source-level control-flow integrity for the internal logic.
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