Inferring and Securing Software Configurations using Automated Reasoning
Software configurability opens the door to misconfiguration vulnerabilities, invalid settings that expose software weaknesses. Misconfiguration is one the top ten most critical security risks and the most common. This paper envisions a world without misconfiguration vulnerabilities through the use of automated reasoning techniques to infer and secure software configurations. Real-world software, however, often lacks an explicit specification of secure configurations, relying on hand-validation by users. Real-world systems comprise many individual highly-configurable software components, making the space of possible configurations for the whole system enormous. To realize our vision and overcome these challenges, we aim to create a rigorous definition of configuration specifications, use formal methods to mechanize the inference and generation of valid configurations, and develop algorithms to automatically secure against misconfiguration.
Paul Gazzillo is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Central Florida. He received his PhD from NYU and previously worked as a Post-Doc at Yale and a Research Scholar at Stevens Institute. His research aims to make it easier to develop safe and secure software, and it spans programming languages, security, software engineering, and systems. Projects include analysis of configurable systems, side-channel attack detection, and concurrent smart contracts. His work has been published in venues such as PLDI, ESEC/FSE, and ICSE and has been recognized with a SIGPLAN Research Highlight and an NSF CAREER award.
Tue 10 NovDisplayed time zone: (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time change
17:00 - 17:30 | |||
17:00 2mTalk | Configuration Smells in Continuous Delivery Pipelines: A Linter and a Six-Month Study on GitLab Research Papers Carmine Vassallo University of Zurich, Switzerland, Sebastian Proksch Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, Anna Jancso University of Zurich, Switzerland, Harald Gall University of Zurich, Switzerland, Massimiliano Di Penta University of Sannio, Italy DOI Pre-print | ||
17:03 1mTalk | Dimensions of Software Configuration: On the Configuration Context in Modern Software Development Research Papers Norbert Siegmund Leipzig University, Nicolai Ruckel Bauhaus-University Weimar, Janet Siegmund TU Chemnitz, Germany DOI | ||
17:05 1mTalk | Global Cost/Quality Management across Multiple Applications Research Papers Liu Liu Rutgers University, USA, Sibren Isaacman Loyola University Maryland, USA, Uli Kremer Rutgers University, USA DOI | ||
17:07 1mTalk | Inferring and Securing Software Configurations using Automated Reasoning Visions and Reflections Paul Gazzillo University of Central Florida DOI | ||
17:09 1mTalk | Understanding and Discovering Software Configuration Dependencies in Cloud and Datacenter Systems Research Papers Qingrong Chen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, Teng Wang National University of Defense Technology, China, Owolabi Legunsen Cornell University, Shanshan Li National University of Defense Technology, China, Tianyin Xu University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA DOI | ||
17:11 19mTalk | Conversations on Configuration Paper Presentations Carmine Vassallo University of Zurich, Switzerland, Liu Liu Rutgers University, Nicolai Ruckel Bauhaus-University Weimar, Paul Gazzillo University of Central Florida, Qingrong Chen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, M: Sarah Nadi University of Alberta | ||
