LanguageBased Security ProofCarrying Code

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Language-Based SecurityProof-Carrying Code

• Greg Morrisett
• Cornell University
• Thanks to G.Necula P.Lee

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Papers for this Lecture

• G. Necula, Proof-Carrying Code. PoPL'97.
• G.Necula and P.Lee. Safe Kernel Extensions
  Without
• Run-Time Checking. OSDI'96.
• G.Necula and P.Lee. The Design and
  Implementation of a Certifying Compiler.
  PLDI98, June 1998. pldi98.ps
• I also highly recommend Neculas PhD thesis (CMU).

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Ideally
trusted computing base
Security Policy
Your favorite language
verifier
System Binary
Low-Level IL
optimizer
machine code
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Idea 1 Theorem Prover!
trusted computing base
NuPRL
Security Policy
Your favorite language
System Binary
Low-Level IL

optimizer
machine code
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Unfortunately...
trusted computing base
NuPRL


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Observation
Finding a proof is hard, but verifying a proof
is easy.
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PCC
trusted computing base
verifier
Security Policy
optimizer
System Binary
machine code
prover
certified binary
code
proof
in- variants
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Making Proof Rigorous

• Specify machine-code semantics and security
  policy using axiomatic semantics.
• Pre ld r2,r1(i) Post
• Given
• security policy (i.e., axiomatic semantics and
  associated logic for assertions)
• untrusted code
• annotated with invariant assertions
• its possible to calculate a verification
  condition
• an assertion A such that
• if A is true then the code respects the policy.

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The Client

• The client takes its code the policy
• constructs some loop invariants.
• constructs the verification condition A from the
  code, policy, and loop invariants.
• constructs a proof that A is true.

code
proof
in- variants
certified binary
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Verification

• The Verifier ( 4-6 pages of C code)
• takes code, loop invariants, and policy
• calculates the verification condition A.
• checks that the proof is a valid proof of A
• fails if some step doesnt follow from an axiom
  or inference rule
• fails if the proof is valid, but not a proof of A

code
proof
in- variants
certified binary
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Advantages of PCC

• In Principle
• Simple, small, and fast TCB.
• No external authentication or cryptography.
• No additional run-time checks.
• Tamper-proof.
• Precise and expressive specification of code
  safety policies.

code
proof
in- variants
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An Experiment Packet Filters

• Safety Policy
• given a packet, returns yes/no
• packet is read-only, small scratchpad
• no loops
• Compare
• Berkeley Packet Filter Interpreter
• Modula-3 (but turn off type-checking)
• Software Fault Isolation (sandboxing)
• PCC (hand-optimized, proved)

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Results

• PCC wins

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Is PCC the answer?

• PCC seems to offer everything we need
• small, simple trusted computing base
• optimize all you want, any language, any security
  policy, etc.
• But how do we make it scale to real programs?

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Scaling Problem 1

• How to generate proofs?
• Manual construction is too painful for real
  programs.
• Interactive theorem provers are really only
  feasible for a relatively small fraction of the
  code.
• We need something thats fully automatic most of
  the time.

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One Approach

• Restrict the safety policy to type safety.
• Necessary for most policies anyway
• cannot execute code or access data for which you
  do not have a capability.
• type systems are a meta-policy that allow
  programmers to define fine-grained notions of
  capability and access.
• abstract types, interfaces, static scope, etc.
• Start with a well-typed, high-level program
• you have a proof for the high-level code
• preserve the proof as you compile

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Type-Preserving Compilation
Source code
binary
Type-checker
Optimizer
Code- generator
Proof of type-safety
Proof of type-safety
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Touchstone Necula

• Compiles type-safe subset of C to certified
  binaries for the DEC Alpha.
• Security policy is type-safety
• parameters of the right type to functions
• values of the right type in arrays, structs
• array indices in bounds
• Highly-optimizing
• competitive with GCC, DEC cc
• eliminates array bound checks when possible

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Touchstone Performance
In spite of the fact that C compilers do not
insert array bound checks, Touchstone
is competitive.
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Touchstone Compilation Time

• Geometric means
• compilation 75
• VC generation 2

• proving 21
• proof checking 2

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JVM vs. Touchstone

• JVM
• portable
• Touchstone
• extremely good performance
• extremely small TCB
• fast verification

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However...

• Touchstones type system suits only one very
  simple language
• no abstract data types, objects, etc.
• no threads
• Proof size was an issue
• proofs were 1-3x the size of the code, just for a
  really simple notion of type-safety.
• but recent work by Necula shows that this can be
  compressed down to tiny overhead (e.g., 10)

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Touchstone proof size
Touchstones proof size relative to code
and invariant annotations.
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Summary thus far...

• Proof-carrying code is great in principle.
• Its the right general framework.
• For special-purpose applications, cant be beat.
• But for general-purpose extensions
• Need some way to get the proof automatically
  (limit policy to type-safety).
• Engineering proof size is an issue.
• Compiling high-level languages is an issue.

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Design Details
Server
Client
Safety policy
Certifying Compiler
Source
VC Generator
Logic
VC
Code
Theorem Prover
Proof Checker
Proof
Untrusted Complex Slow
Trusted Simple Fast
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Proof Representation

• Use a variant of LF to represent assertions and
  proofs.
• write down assertion language
• write down inference rules for the logic
• proof-checking becomes LF type-checking
• decouples the logic and assertion language from
  the verifier.
• of course, you still have to establish the
  soundness and consistency of the logic that you
  encode within LF. And this is very hard for
  realistic settings.

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Representing LF Proofs

• In practice LF proof objects are HUGE.
• Recent work on proof oracles compresses this down
  to nothing PoPL2001?
• assume you can match the goal against the
  conclusions of the proof rules (e.g., 1st-order
  unification.) If you cant match with this, then
  force the representation to contain more
  information
• only some (small) subset of the rules will apply
  (say k of them.)
• so you only need to spit out lg(k) bits to
  indicate which rule is actually used in the
  proof.
• the matching lets you then establish sub-goals
  that need to be proven.

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Where PCC stands

• Cedilla has built a certifying compiler for Java.
• generates optimized x86 code
• but you can write your own code too!
• uses a Nelson-Oppen-style prover
• The proof checker is actually machine independent
• map object code up to a machine-independent IL
  (Secure Assembly Language)
• proofs are with respect to that the SAL code
• retargeting the prover to another machine just
  involves writing a (correct) mapping from the
  machine code to SAL.

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Foundational PCC Appel, Felty

• Eliminate more trust from PCC
• logic encoded into LF
• implicit machine semantics
• Rather, encode things from the machine semantics
  up.
• you prove w.r.t. the semantics that PreCPost
  is valid.
• Interesting observation
• to do any reasonable proof, you start introducing
  types or invariants that look suspiciously like
  TAL
• except that you have a semantic encoding as to
  what the TAL types mean w.r.t. the machine.