Program Analysis for WebAssembly Binaries

Northeastern University

Research into program analysis techniques specifically designed for WebAssembly runtime environments, focusing on security analysis and vulnerability detection in WASM modules.

WebAssembly (Wasm) has become a ubiquitous compilation target for performance-critical web applications and is increasingly used in server-side and edge computing contexts. This project develops static and dynamic analysis techniques tailored to the unique characteristics of Wasm binaries, including their structured control flow, linear memory model, and type system.

Key research directions include:

• Binary-level taint analysis for Wasm modules

• Control flow integrity verification in Wasm runtimes

• Vulnerability detection through symbolic execution of Wasm bytecode

• Cross-language analysis for applications compiled from C/C++/Rust to Wasm