Sulong: Memory Safe and Efficient Execution of LLVM-Based Languages

Memory errors in C/C++ can allow an attacker to read sensitive data, corrupt the memory, or crash the executing process. The renowned top 25 of most dangerous software errors as published by the SANS Institute, as well as recent security disasters such as Heartbleed show how important it is to tackle memory safety for C/C++. We present Sulong, an efficient interpreter for LLVM-based languages that runs on the JVM. Sulong guarantees memory safety for C/C++ and other LLVM-based languages by using managed allocations and automatic memory management. Through dynamic compilation, Sulong will achieve peak performance close to state of the art compilers such as GCC or Clang, which do not produce memory-safe code. By efficiently implementing memory safety, Sulong strives to be a real-world solution for mitigating software security problems.