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Detecting code clones in binary executables

Authors:

Andreas Sæbjørnsen,

Jeremiah Willcock,

Daniel Quinlan,

Zhendong SuAuthors Info & Claims

ISSTA '09: Proceedings of the eighteenth international symposium on Software testing and analysis

Pages 117 - 128

https://doi.org/10.1145/1572272.1572287

Published: 19 July 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Large software projects contain significant code duplication, mainly due to copying and pasting code. Many techniques have been developed to identify duplicated code to enable applications such as refactoring, detecting bugs, and protecting intellectual property. Because source code is often unavailable, especially for third-party software, finding duplicated code in binaries becomes particularly important. However, existing techniques operate primarily on source code, and no effective tool exists for binaries.

In this paper, we describe the first practical clone detection algorithm for binary executables. Our algorithm extends an existing tree similarity framework based on clustering of characteristic vectors of labeled trees with novel techniques to normalize assembly instructions and to accurately and compactly model their structural information. We have implemented our technique and evaluated it on Windows XP system binaries totaling over 50 million assembly instructions. Results show that it is both scalable and precise: it analyzed Windows XP system binaries in a few hours and produced few false positives. We believe our technique is a practical, enabling technology for many applications dealing with binary code.

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Cited By

Yi XLi GLi JDing A(2024)RepFTI: Representation-Fused Function-Type Inference for Vehicular Secure Software SystemsApplied Sciences10.3390/app1411450214:11(4502)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app14114502
Dong CLi SYang SXiao YWang YLi HLi ZSun LRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)LibvDiff: Library Version Difference Guided OSS Version Identification in BinariesProceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3597503.3623336(1-12)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597503.3623336
Jiang XWang SGong YYu TLiu LYu X(2024)HAformer: Semantic fusion of hex machine code and assembly code for cross-architecture binary vulnerability detectionComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2024.104029145(104029)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2024.104029
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Index Terms

Detecting code clones in binary executables
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software post-development issues
      1. Software reverse engineering

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ISSTA '09: Proceedings of the eighteenth international symposium on Software testing and analysis

July 2009

306 pages

ISBN:9781605583389

DOI:10.1145/1572272

General Chair:
Gregg Rothermel
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Program Chair:
Laura Dillon
Michigan State University, USA

Copyright © 2009 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 19 July 2009

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ISSTA '09

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ISSTA '09: International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

July 19 - 23, 2009

IL, Chicago, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 58 of 213 submissions, 27%

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ISSTA '25

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34th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

June 25 - 28, 2025

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Cited By

Yi XLi GLi JDing A(2024)RepFTI: Representation-Fused Function-Type Inference for Vehicular Secure Software SystemsApplied Sciences10.3390/app1411450214:11(4502)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/app14114502
Dong CLi SYang SXiao YWang YLi HLi ZSun LRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)LibvDiff: Library Version Difference Guided OSS Version Identification in BinariesProceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3597503.3623336(1-12)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597503.3623336
Jiang XWang SGong YYu TLiu LYu X(2024)HAformer: Semantic fusion of hex machine code and assembly code for cross-architecture binary vulnerability detectionComputers & Security10.1016/j.cose.2024.104029145(104029)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2024.104029
Yang SDong CXiao YCheng YShi ZLi ZSun L(2023)Asteria-Pro: Enhancing Deep Learning-based Binary Code Similarity Detection by Incorporating Domain KnowledgeACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/360461133:1(1-40)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3604611
Wang HMa PWang STang QNie SWu S(2023)sem2vec: Semantics-aware Assembly Tracelet EmbeddingACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/356993332:4(1-34)Online publication date: 27-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3569933
Chen LQian YWang YMao B(2023)Nimbus++: Revisiting Efficient Function Signature Recovery with Depth Data AnalysisInternational Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering10.1142/S021819402350042033:10(1537-1565)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218194023500420
Wang HMa PYuan YLiu ZWang STang QNie SWu S(2023)Enhancing DNN-Based Binary Code Function Search With Low-Cost Equivalence CheckingIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2022.314924049:1(226-250)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3149240
Schäfer AHeinze TAmme W(2023)Finding Source Code Clones in Intermediate Representations of Java Bytecode2023 IEEE 17th International Workshop on Software Clones (IWSC)10.1109/IWSC60764.2023.00014(37-43)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/IWSC60764.2023.00014
Guo JZhao BLiu HLeng DAn YShu G(2023)DeepDual-SD: Deep Dual Attribute-Aware Embedding for Binary Code Similarity DetectionInternational Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems10.1007/s44196-023-00206-916:1Online publication date: 17-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44196-023-00206-9
Huang JWang GShi ZLv FZhang WLv S(2023)SeHBPL: Behavioral Semantics-Based Patch Presence Test for BinariesDependable Software Engineering. Theories, Tools, and Applications10.1007/978-981-99-8664-4_6(92-111)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8664-4_6
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