SBIR-STTR Award

An Interface Monitoring Approach to Malicious Logic Detection
Award last edited on: 3/3/2007

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
DOD : OSD
Total Award Amount
$99,890
Award Phase
1
Solicitation Topic Code
OSD04-SP5
Principal Investigator
Paul Cadaret

Company Information

Unicon Research Corporation

1640 Fifth Street Suite 100
Santa Monica, CA 90401
   (310) 393-4636
   landerson@welchcon.com
   www.unicon.com
Location: Multiple
Congr. District: 33
County: Los Angeles

Phase I

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase I year
2005
Phase I Amount
$99,890
Software is now a critical part of our national security infrastructure. Critical DOD software systems that are compromised can put lives in jeopardy. With the threat of the insertion of unauthorized or malicious logic into critical software systems the ability to detect and expose such code is a significant concern. Any software that performs any function whether malicious or not is only useful when it interacts with the `outside-world'. A compromised program's best chance at exhibiting malicious behavior is through such outside-world interactions as well. Since most software where malicious behavior is a significant concern runs on structured environments such as commercial or publicly available operating systems (OS), this proposal presents methods to monitor software that interacts with the outside world via OS system calls and library interfaces. Methods and tools are described that allow the activity of programs to be monitored, statistics gathered, patterns of use gathered, usage patterns monitored, abnormal behavior detected, and reactive security measures initiated. Tools are also identified to assist in this process.

Keywords:
Malicious And Erroneous Logic Detection, Attack Analysis Tools, Security Rule Generation Tools, Protection Method Insertion Tools, Software Application Self-Monitoring

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase II year
----
Phase II Amount
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