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Using memory errors to attack a virtual machine
Abstract
We present an experimental study showing that soft memory errors can lead to serious security vulnerabilities in Java and .NET virtual machines, or in any system that relies on type-checking of untrusted programs as a protection mechanism. Our attack works by sending to the JVM a Java program that is designed so that almost any memory error in its address space will allow it to take control of the JVM. All conventional Java and .NET virtual machines are vulnerable to this attack. The technique of the attack is broadly applicable against other language-based security schemes such as proof-carrying code. We measured the attack on two commercial Java virtual machines: Sun's and IBM's. We show that a single-bit error in the Java program's data space can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with a probability of about 70%, and multiple-bit errors with a lower probability. Our attack is particularly relevant against smart cards or tamper-resistant computers, where the user has physical access (to the outside of the computer) and can use various means to induce faults; we have successfully used heat. Fortunately, there are some straightforward defenses against this attack.
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Cited by
Lest we remember: cold-boot attacks on encryption keys
Halderman, J. A., Schoen, S. D., Heninger, N., Clarkson, W., Paul, W., Calandrino, J. A., Feldman, A. J., Appelbaum, J., & Felten, E. W. (2009) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/1506409.1506429 · Cited by 980
The Sorcerer's Apprentice Guide to Fault Attacks
Bar-El, H., Choukri, H., Naccache, D., Tunstall, M., & Whelan, C. (2006) · Proceedings of the IEEE · doi:10.1109/jproc.2005.862424 · Cited by 743
DRAM errors in the wild: a large-scale field study
Schroeder, B., Pinheiro, E., & Weber, W.-D. (2009) · Proceedings of the eleventh international joint conference on Measurement and modeling of computer systems · doi:10.1145/1555349.1555372 · Cited by 557
Metadata
- Authors
- Govindavajhala, S., & Appel, A. W.
- Venue
- Proceedings 19th International Conference on Data Engineering (Cat. No.03CH37405)
- Publisher
- IEEE Comput. Soc
- Published
- 2004-05-13
- Pages
- 154-165
- ISSN
- 1084-4627 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2102362134
- Cited by
- 191
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 8.02
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Using memory errors to attack a virtual machine. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1109/secpri.2003.1199334
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- Govindavajhala, S., & Appel, A. W. (2004). Using memory errors to attack a virtual machine. Proceedings 19th International Conference on Data Engineering (Cat. No.03CH37405). https://doi.org/10.1109/secpri.2003.1199334
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