S <scp>nowplow</scp> : Effective Kernel Fuzzing with a Learned White-box Test Mutator

Kernel fuzzers rely heavily on program mutation to automatically generate new test programs based on existing ones. In particular, program mutation can alter the test's control and data flow inside the kernel by inserting new system calls, changing the values of call arguments, or performing other program mutations. However, due to the complexity of the kernel code and its user-space interface, finding the effective mutation that can lead to the desired outcome such as increasing the coverage and reaching a target code location is extremely difficult, even with the widespread use of manually-crafted heuristics.

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Publication Details

Published
2025-03-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3676641.3716019
Citations
2
Primary Topic
Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.62
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article

S nowplow : Effective Kernel Fuzzing with a Learned White-box Test Mutator

Sishuai Gong, Pedro Fonseca, Deniz Altınbüken, Petros Maniatis et al.
2 citations
Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
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article

S nowplow : Effective Kernel Fuzzing with a Learned White-box Test Mutator

Sishuai Gong, Pedro Fonseca, Deniz Altınbüken, Petros Maniatis, Wang Rui
article en
2 citations

Abstract

Kernel fuzzers rely heavily on program mutation to automatically generate new test programs based on existing ones. In particular, program mutation can alter the test's control and data flow inside the kernel by inserting new system calls, changing the values of call arguments, or performing other program mutations. However, due to the complexity of the kernel code and its user-space interface, finding the effective mutation that can lead to the desired outcome such as increasing the coverage and reaching a target code location is extremely difficult, even with the widespread use of manually-crafted heuristics.

Google (United States) (US), Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 7%
Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
4.62
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