A dynamic detective method against ROP attack on ARM platform

Abstract

With the popularity of embedded devices, especially smart phones, a growing attention has been paid to their programs' security. Many viruses on PC platforms migrated to embedded device have brought new threats to the security of the embedded platform. ROP (Return-Oriented Programming) attack is one of them. At the same time, traditional protective measures on PC platform tend to lose effect in embedded devices due to differences among platforms and architectures which bring significant challenges to virus protection on embedded devices. Defending ROP attack confronts the same problem. Existing protective methods against ROP attack on PC rarely work well on an embedded platform. This paper presents a protective algorithm against ROP virus on the embedded ARM platform. Furthermore, we develop a Valgrind tool to implement this algorithm with dynamic binary instrumentation technology which can effectively prevent the ROP attack and its variants on the ARM platform.