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arXiv · 1902.08359

Exploitation Techniques and Defenses for Data-Oriented Attacks

Long Cheng·Hans Liljestrand·Thomas Nyman·Yu Tsung Lee·Danfeng Yao·Trent Jaeger·N. Asokan
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Abstract

Data-oriented attacks manipulate non-control data to alter a program's benign behavior without violating its control-flow integrity. It has been shown that such attacks can cause significant damage even in the presence of control-flow defense mechanisms. However, these threats have not been adequately addressed. In this SoK paper, we first map data-oriented exploits, including Data-Oriented Programming (DOP) attacks, to their assumptions/requirements and attack capabilities. We also compare known defenses against these attacks, in terms of approach, detection capabilities, overhead, and compatibility. Then, we experimentally assess the feasibility of a detection approach that is based on the Intel Processor Trace (PT) technology. PT only traces control flows, thus, is generally believed to be not useful for data-oriented security. However, our work reveals that data-oriented attacks (in particular the recent DOP attacks) may generate side-effects on control-flow behavior in multiple dimensions, which manifest in PT traces. Based on this evaluation, we discuss challenges for building deployable data-oriented defenses and open research questions.

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Long Cheng, Hans Liljestrand, Thomas Nyman, Yu Tsung Lee, Danfeng Yao, Trent Jaeger, N. Asokan. 2019-02-22. Exploitation Techniques and Defenses for Data-Oriented Attacks. https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.08359

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