In this assignment, your task is to review the software security literature to research a type of software vulnerability of your choice, the associated hacking techniques used to exploit it, and defensive techniques used to detect and/or mitigate this type of vulnerability.
Tasks
1. Chosen Vulnerability: Pick one software vulnerability that we have not covered in detail in our lectures or labs as your topic of investigation for this assignment. Example vulnerabilities include, but not limited to:
- Web server vulnerabilities (e.g. Heartbleed, Shellshock)
- Web browser vulnerabilities (e.g. web browser heap overflows)
- Side-channel leakage (e.g. Timing/Power/EM/Acoustic/Cross-VM...)
- Remote / Local File Inclusion
- Return-Oriented Programming (ROP)
- Privilege escalation attacks on operating systems (e.g. Windows, Linux, Android) Operating system vulnerabilities (for Windows, Android, or Linux)
- Cryptography-related vulnerabilities (e.g. TLS vulnerabilities such as: BEAST,
- CRIME, BREACH, POODLE, FREAK, or Logjam, Wireless protocol cryptographic vulnerabilities).
- Embedded software vulnerabilities (e.g. 'cold-boot' attacks, Stuxnet)
- Denial of service vulnerabilities
- You are not required to choose from the above list; you can choose your own topic (if you are unsure if a topic is suitable, ask your tutor or lecturer).
IMPORTANT NOTE: To avoid duplication of topics, each student in this unit will have to choose a different vulnerability as his/her chosen topic. Topics will be allocated by your tutor on a 'first come first serve' basis. Once you have decided on a chosen vulnerability, let your tutor know as soon as possible to avoid the possibility of another student choosing this vulnerability before you. If your chosen vulnerability was already 'taken' by another student, your tutor will ask you to choose a different topic.
2. Vulnerability Explanation: Explain what your chosen vulnerability is and how it can arise in software systems.
3. Vulnerability Exploitation: Investigate how your chosen vulnerability can be exploited, and provide detailed explanation of how the exploitation attacks work, illustrating your explanation with either a piece of real code (or, if this is not practical, an algorithm written in pseudocode) that demonstrates the vulnerability and its exploitation with some example data. Explain any variants of the vulnerability/attacks and their relative advantages and 2 limitations. Assess the current security implications of the attacks in terms of potential risk to software systems that have such vulnerabilities.
4. Vulnerability Detection: Investigate methods that can be used to test for and detect the vulnerability in software systems and assess their effectiveness.
5. Vulnerability Mitigation: Investigate mitigation approaches that could be used to eliminate such vulnerabilities from software or reduce the effectiveness of exploit attacks, and assess their effectiveness. Illustrate your explanation with example mitigation code (or, if this is not practical, an algorithm written in pseudocode), explaining how it resists previous exploitation attacks, why you think it is difficult to break the secure code with any other attack, along with any assumptions needed for the mitigation to be effective, and an assessment of the validity of these assumptions in typical applications.
6. Research Directions: Explain whether/how you think this type of vulnerability may be modified or extended in future, and identify possible directions for improving detection and/or mitigation of similar vulnerabilities in future systems.
Your research for this assignment should make use of, and your report should cite and discuss, at least 4 relevant research papers from the software security research literature.
Your report will graded with the following mark allocation:
- Quality/depth of explanation of vulnerability, its exploitation, detection, and mitigation.
- Clarity/correctness of demonstration insecure/secure code/pseudocode in Tasks 3 and 6.
- Evaluation of security implications and research directions of improvement for attacks/mitigation/detection techniques.
- Quality of answers to interview questions on report.
Submission:
Your report must answer all the 6 tasks. Submit a report of your findings with six sections. Section 1 will be an introduction to your report, introducing the chosen vulnerability and the summarizing the contents of the remaining sections. The following five sections should cover your findings with respect to tasks 2-6 above, respectively (e.g. Section 2 should be titled 'Vulnerability Explanation' and contain your findings for task 2 above). You may include screen shots and any long pieces of code used to demonstrate the task as an appendix. The page limit for the reports is 18 pages (not including references and appendix).