Mutation-based testing of buffer overflows, SQL injections, and format string bugs
Hossain Shahriar · 2008
Testing is an indispensable mechanism for assuring software quality. One of the key issues in testing is to obtain a test data set that is able to effectively test an implementation. An adequate test data set consists of test cases that can expose faults in a software implementation. Mutationbased testing can be employed to obtain adequate test data sets, and numerous mutation operators have been proposed to date to measure the adequacy of test data sets that reveal functional faults. However, implementations that pass functionality tests are still vulnerable to malicious attacks. Despite the rigorous use of various existing testing techniques, many vulnerabilities are discovered after the deployment of software implementations, such as buffer overflows (BOF), SQL injections, and format string bugs (FSB). Successful exploitations of these vulnerabilities may result in severe consequences such as denial of services, application state corruptions, and information leakage. Many approaches have been proposed to detect these vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, very few approaches address the issue of testing implementations against vulnerabilities. Moreover, these approaches do not provide an indication whether a test data set is adequate for vulnerability testing or not. We believe that bringing the idea of traditional functional test adequacy to vulnerability testing