Static Taint Analysis in Rust: Using Rusts Ownership System for Precise Static Analysis
Translated title
Static Taint Analysis in Rust
Authors
Gústafsson, Hilmar ; Njor, Emil Jørgensen
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2021
Submitted on
2021-06-10
Pages
51
Abstract
The Rust programming language employs a ownership system that tackles the aliasing issue, a significant source for imprecision in ordinary static analyses. Theoretically, a static analysis should therefore be more precise in Rust than in languages without the ownership system. We explore how the ownership system can make an analysis more precise in practice. To do so, we formally define a subset of Mid-level Intermediate Representation (MIR), and a static taint analysis based on that formalization. We implement a tool which is based on the Rust compiler to demonstrate the formalized taint analysis. We confirm that the ownership system makes it possible to create a more precise taint analysis due to the aliasing restrictions.
Keywords
Statisk Analyse ; Rust ; Taint Analyse ; Semantik ; Syntaks
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