Automatic detection method of software upgrade vulnerability based on network traffic analysis

Abstract

During the software upgrade process, the lack of authentication for upgrade information or packages can lead to remote code execution vulnerabilities based on man-in-the-middle attack. An automatic detection method for upgrading vulnerabilities was proposed. The method described the upgrade mechanism by extracting the network traffic during the upgrade process, then matched it with the vulnerability feature vector to anticipate upgrading vulnerabilities. In a validation environment, the man-in-the-middle attack using the portrait information was carried out to verify the detection results. In addition, an automatic vulnerability analysis and verification system based on this method was designed. 184 Windows applications samples was test and 117 upgrade vulnerabilities were detected in these samples, which proved validity of the method.

Keywords

• software upgrade
• network traffic analysis
• vulnerability detection
• automated analysis and validation