Lucas Cordeiro

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Papers by Lucas Cordeiro

Bounded Model Checking of Multi-threaded Software using SMT solvers

arXiv (Cornell University), Mar 19, 2010

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Verifying Security Vulnerabilities in Large Software Systems using Multi-Core k-Induction

arXiv (Cornell University), Feb 3, 2021

Computer-based systems have been used to solve several domain problems, such as industrial, milit... more Computer-based systems have been used to solve several domain problems, such as industrial, military, education, and wearable. Those systems need high-quality software to guarantee security and safety. We advocate that Bounded Model Checking (BMC) techniques can detect security vulnerabilities in the early stages of development processes. However, this technique struggles to scale up and verify large software commonly found on computer-based systems. Here, we develop and evaluate a pragmatic approach to verify large software systems using a state-of-the-art bounded model checker. In particular, we pre-process the input source-code files and then guide the model checker to explore the code systematically. We also present a multi-core implementation of the k-induction proof algorithm to verify and falsify large software systems iteratively. Our experimental results using the Efficient SMT-based Model Checker (ESBMC) show that our approach can guide ESBMC to efficiently verify large software systems. We evaluate our approach using the PuTTY application to verify 136 files and 2803 functions in less than 86 minutes, and the SlimGuard allocator, where we have found real security vulnerabilities confirmed by the developers. We conclude that our approach can successfully guide a bounded model checker to verify large software systems systematically. Index Terms-Bounded model checking, software verification, security vulnerabilities, k-induction proof rule.

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Verifying Quantized Neural Networks using SMT-Based Model Checking

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are being deployed for an increasing number of safety-critical ... more Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are being deployed for an increasing number of safety-critical applications, including autonomous cars and medical diagnosis. However, concerns about their reliability have been raised due to their black-box nature and apparent fragility to adversarial attacks. These concerns are amplified when ANNs are deployed on the restricted systems, which limits the precision of mathematical operations and thus introduce additional quantization errors. Here, we develop and evaluate a novel symbolic verification framework using software model checking (SMC) and satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) to check for vulnerabilities in ANNs. More specifically, we propose several ANN-related optimizations for SMC, including invariant inference via interval analysis, slicing, expression simplifications, and discretization of non-linear activation functions. With this verification framework, we can provide formal guarantees on the safe behavior of ANNs implemented both i...

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Map2Check Using LLVM and KLEE

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, 2018

Map2Check is a bug hunting tool that automatically checks safety properties in C programs. It tra... more Map2Check is a bug hunting tool that automatically checks safety properties in C programs. It tracks memory pointers and variable assignments to check user-specified assertions, overflow, and pointer safety. Here, we extend Map2Check to: (i) simplify the program using Clang/LLVM; (ii) perform a path-based symbolic execution using the KLEE tool; and (iii) transform and instrument the code using the LLVM dynamic information flow. The SVCOMP'18 results show that Map2Check can be effective in generating and checking test cases related to memory management of C programs. 1 Overview Map2Check v7.1 uses source code instrumentation based on dynamic information flow, to monitor data from different program executions. Map2Check automatically produces concrete inputs to the program via symbolic execution, in order to execute different program paths and to detect failures related to arithmetic overflow, invalid deallocation, invalid pointers, and memory leaks. Map2Check uses Clang [5] as a front-end, which supports the main C standard, e.g., C99 according to the standard ISO/IEC 9899:1990. In its previous version [7], Map2Check was able to automatically generate test cases to check memory management using bounded model checkers (e.g., ESBMC [4]). The main original contributions of Map2Check v7.1 are: (i) added Clang [5] as a front-end to improve the symbolic execution of C programs; (ii) adopted the LLVM [6] framework as a code transformation engine; and (iii) integrated the KLEE [1] tool as a symbolic execution engine to automatically explore different program paths. 2 Verification Approach The Map2Check tool is inspired by LEAKPOINT [3] and Symbiotic 4 [2], which use compiler techniques to analyze C programs using code instrumentation. The H. Rocha-Jury member.

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Memory Management Test-Case Generation of C Programs Using Bounded Model Checking

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015

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Verifying Embedded C Software with Timing Constraints Using an Untimed Bounded Model Checker

2011 Brazilian Symposium on Computing System Engineering, 2011

Embedded systems are everywhere, from home appliances to critical systems such as medical devices... more Embedded systems are everywhere, from home appliances to critical systems such as medical devices. They usually have associated timing constraints that need to be verified for the implementation. Here, we use an untimed bounded model checker to verify timing properties of embedded C programs. We propose an approach to specify discrete time timing constraints using code annotations. The annotated code is then automatically translated to code that manipulates auxiliary timer variables and is thus suitable as input to conventional, untimed software model checker such as ESBMC. Thus, we can check timing constraints in the same way and at the same time as untimed system requirements, and even allow for interaction between them. We applied the proposed method in a case study, and verified timing constraints of a pulse oximeter, a noninvasive medical device that measures the oxygen saturation of arterial blood.

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A Platform-Based Software Design Methodology for Embedded Control Systems: An Agile Toolkit

15th Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshop on the Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ecbs 2008), 2008

A discrete control system, with stringent hardware constraints, is effectively an embedded real-t... more A discrete control system, with stringent hardware constraints, is effectively an embedded real-time system and hence requires a rigorous methodology to develop the software involved. The development methodology proposed in this paper adapts agile principles and patterns to support the building of embedded control systems, focusing on the issues relating to a system's constraints and safety. Strong unit testing, to ensure correctness, including the satisfaction of timing constraints, is the foundation of the proposed methodology. A platform-based design approach is used to balance costs and time-to-market in relation to performance and functionality constraints. It is concluded that the proposed methodology significantly reduces design time and costs, as well as leading to better software modularity and reliability.

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ezRealtime: A Domain-Specific Modeling Tool for Embedded Hard Real-Time Software Synthesis

2008 Design, Automation and Test in Europe, 2008

In this paper, we introduce the ezRealtime project, which relies on the Time Petri Net (TPN) form... more In this paper, we introduce the ezRealtime project, which relies on the Time Petri Net (TPN) formalism and defines a Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) tool to provide an easyto-use environment for specifying Embedded Hard Real-Time (EHRT) systems and for synthesizing timely and predictable scheduled C code. Therefore, this paper presents a generative programming method in order to boost code quality and improve substantially developer productivity by making use of automated software synthesis. The ezRealtime tool reads and automatically translates the system's specification to a time Petri net model through composition of building blocks with the purpose of providing a complete model of all tasks in the system. Hence, this model is used to find a feasible schedule by applying a depth-first search algorithm. Finally, the scheduled code is generated by traversing the feasible schedule, and replacing transition's instances by the respective code segments. We also present the application of the proposed method in an expressive case study.

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A car racing based strategy for the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling technique

2012 IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, 2012

This work proposes the application of a car racing analogy to develop real-time applications with... more This work proposes the application of a car racing analogy to develop real-time applications with low energy consumption using the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling technique. Although several previous works had dealt with the DVFS technique, our proposed method offers two main improvements. First, it can be applied to multiple preemptable real-time tasks. Second, in our method, energy consumption optimization

An agile development methodology applied to embedded control software under stringent hardware constraints

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 2008

In recent years, discrete control systems play an important role in the development and advanceme... more In recent years, discrete control systems play an important role in the development and advancement of modern civilization and technology. Practically every aspect of our life is affected by some type of control systems. This kind of system maybe classified as an embedded real-time system and requires rigorous methodologies to develop the software that is under stringent hardware constraints. Therefore, the proposed development methodology adapts agile principles and patterns in order to build embedded control systems focusing on the issues related to the system's constraints and safety. Strong unit testing is the foundation of the proposed methodology for ensuring timeliness and correctness. Moreover, platform-based design approach is used to balance costs and time-to-market in view of performance and functionality constraints. We conclude that the proposed methodology reduces significantly the design time and cost as well as leads to better software modularity and reliability.

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Handling Unbounded Loops with ESBMC 1.20

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013

We extended ESBMC to exploit the combination of context-bounded symbolic model checking and k-ind... more We extended ESBMC to exploit the combination of context-bounded symbolic model checking and k-induction to prove safety properties in singleand multi-threaded ANSI-C programs with unbounded loops. We now first try to verify by induction that the safety property holds in the system. If that fails, we search for a bounded reachable state that constitutes a counterexample.

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Applying symbolic bounded model checking to the 2012 RERS greybox challenge

International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, 2014

We describe the application of ESBMC, a symbolic bounded model checker for C programs, to the 201... more We describe the application of ESBMC, a symbolic bounded model checker for C programs, to the 2012 RERS greybox challenge. We checked the reachability properties via reachability of the error labels, and the behavioral properties via a bounded LTL model checking approach. Our approach could solve about 700 properties for the small and medium problems from the offline phase, and scored overall about 5,000 marks but still ranked last in the competition. Keywords Program verification • Symbolic bounded model checking • Verification competition 1 Introduction Model checking has been used successfully to verify abstract system designs as well as actual software; applying it to the RERS greybox challenge is thus an obvious idea. Model checking comes in a variety of different techniques, but we

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Continuous Verification of Large Embedded Software Using SMT-Based Bounded Model Checking

2010 17th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on Engineering of Computer Based Systems, 2010

The complexity of software in embedded systems has increased significantly over the last years so... more The complexity of software in embedded systems has increased significantly over the last years so that software verification now plays an important role in ensuring the overall product quality. In this context, SAT-based bounded model checking has been successfully applied to discover subtle errors, but for larger applications, it often suffers from the state space explosion problem. This paper describes a new approach called continuous verification to detect design errors as quickly as possible by looking at the Software Configuration Management (SCM) system and by combining dynamic and static verification to reduce the state space to be explored. We also give a set of encodings that provide accurate support for program verification and use different background theories in order to improve scalability and precision in a completely automatic way. A case study from the telecommunications domain shows that the proposed approach improves the error-detection capability and reduces the overall verification time by up to 50%.

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Semiformal Verification of Embedded Software in Medical Devices Considering Stringent Hardware Constraints

2009 International Conference on Embedded Software and Systems, 2009

In recent days, the complexity of software has increased significantly in embedded products in su... more In recent days, the complexity of software has increased significantly in embedded products in such a way that the verification of Embedded Software (ESW) now plays an important role to ensure the product's quality. Embedded systems engineers usually face the problems of verifying properties that have to meet the application's deadline, access the memory region, handle concurrency, and control the hardware registers. This work proposes a semiformal verification approach that combines dynamic and static verification to stress and cover exhaustively the state space of the system. We perform a case study on embedded software used in the medical devices domain. We conclude that the proposed approach improves the coverage and reduces substantially the verification time.

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Mandos: A User Interaction Method in Embedded Applications for Mobile Telephony

First International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interaction, 2008

With the intense use of applicative in mobile device, the question &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;a... more With the intense use of applicative in mobile device, the question &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;usability&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; begins to invigorate strongly as a study object, it is being considered a determinant factor of the success of this segment of the mobile computation. This article proposes an improvement way in the usability of the embedded applicative in mobile devices, considering a new method of user interaction.

Model checking LTL properties over ANSI-C programs with bounded traces

Software & Systems Modeling, 2013

Context-bounded model checking has been used successfully to verify safety properties in multi-th... more Context-bounded model checking has been used successfully to verify safety properties in multi-threaded systems automatically, even if they are implemented in low-level programming languages such as C. In this paper, we describe and experiment with an approach to extend context-bounded software model checking to safety and liveness properties expressed in linear-time temporal logic (LTL). Our approach checks the actual C program, rather than an extracted abstract model. It converts the LTL formulas into Büchi automata for the corresponding never claims and then further into C monitor threads that are interleaved with the execution of the program under analysis. This combined system is then checked using the ESBMC model checker. We use an extended, fourvalued LTL semantics to handle the finite traces that bounded model checking explores; we thus check the combined system several times with different acceptance criteria to derive the correct truth value. In order to mitigate the state space Communicated by Dr.

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SMT-Based Bounded Model Checking for Embedded ANSI-C Software

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2012

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Agile Patterns for Multi-site Software Development

ABSTRACT This paper describes a pattern language for managing multi-site software projects which ... more ABSTRACT This paper describes a pattern language for managing multi-site software projects which aims at minimizing the main problems present on the multi-site software development context. The practices and patterns of the proposed language were first identified from the literature and adapted according to the authors&amp;#39; experience after running some multi-site software projects. This exercise has led to the identification of two new patterns: &amp;quot;Stories Rework Subsystem&amp;quot;, and &amp;quot;Plan Bugs On a Sustainable Pace&amp;quot;, as well as to an alternative application of the existing &amp;quot;Inversion of Control&amp;quot; pattern to the organizational context.

Lucas Cordeiro

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