Fine-Grained User-Space Security Through Virtualization

This paper presents an approach to the safe execution of applications based on software-based fault isolation and policy-based system call authorization. A running application is encapsulated in an additional layer of protection using dynamic binary translation in user-space. This virtualization layer dynamically recompiles the machine code and adds multiple dynamic security guards that verify the running code to protect and contain the application. The binary translation system redirects all system calls to a policy-based system call authorization framework. This interposition framework validates every system call based on the given arguments and the location of the system call. Depending on the user-loadable policy and an extensible handler mechanism the framework decides whether a system call is allowed, rejected, or redirect to a specific user-space handler in the virtualization layer. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of the different security guarantees and a performance analysis of libdetox, a prototype of the full protection platform. The combination of software-based fault isolation and policy-based system call authorization imposes only low overhead and is therefore an attractive option to encapsulate and sandbox applications to improve host security.