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LibRedFat -- A Hardened Malloc Implementation

LibRedFat is a hardened malloc/free implementation based on two complementary memory error detection technologies:

• Poisoned Redzones
• Low-Fat-Pointers

You can use LibRedFat to harden binaries without the need for recompilation or instrumentation.

Building

To build LibRedFat, simply run the script:

    $ ./build.sh

Usage

To test LibRedFat, simply replace the default malloc implementation using LD_PRELOAD, e.g.:

    $ LD_PRELOAD=$PWD/libredfat.so xterm

Alternatively, you can statically link libredfat.a into your program.

Protections

LibRedFat replaces several libc functions with hardened versions that check for memory errors, including:

• memcpy()
• memset()
• memcmp()
• strcmp()
• strcpy()
• strlen()
• strcat()
• etc.

Memory errors on heap pointers allocated using LibRedFat will be automatically detected by these replacement functions.

LibRedFat can be used in conjunction with the RedFat binary hardening system. For this, please see the RedFat project for more information.

Performance

Security and performance are a trade-off, and most existing malloc implementations are optimized for performance. In contrast, LibRedFat attempts to optimize towards security, provided that the performance impact is "reasonable".

As such, the runtime performance of LibRedFat should be somewhat similar to the default malloc/free implementation for most programs.

The memory performance of LibRedFat should be slightly worse than the default malloc/free implementation, mainly because of the use of poisoned redzones, low-fat pointer size binning, and a disjoint metadata for the freelists. It is recommended to profile each potential use case.

Options

LibRedFat supports various optional features that can be enabled using environment variables. Some features can also be statically enabled using the build.sh script (see build.sh --help for more information):

• REDFAT_PROFILE=1: Enable profiling information such as the number of allocations and total library checks. Default: disabled.
• REDFAT_TEST=N: Enable "test"-mode that randomly (once per N allocations) under-allocates by a single byte. If instrumented code accesses the missing byte then a memory error should be detected. A zero value disables test-mode. Default: 0 (disabled).
• REDFAT_QUARANTINE=N: Delay re-allocation of objects until N bytes have been free'ed. This can help detect reuse-after-free errors by not immediately reallocating objects, at the cost of increased memory overheads. However, this can increase memory overheads. Note that N is a per-region value for each allocation size-class, so the total overhead could be N*M where M is the number of regions (typically ~60). Default: 0.
• REDFAT_ZERO=1: Enable the zeroing of objects during deallocation. Provides additional defense against use-after-free errors and a basic defense against uninitialized-read errors. However, zeroing adds additional performance overheads. Default: disabled.
• REDFAT_CANARY=1: Enables a randomized canary to be placed at the end of all allocated objects. The canary provides additional protection for out-of-bounds write errors that may go undetected in uninstrumented code. This consumes an additional 8 bytes per allocation. Note that a canary is always placed at the beginning of all allocated objects since this does not consume additional space. Default: disabled.
• REDFAT_ASLR=1: Enables Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) for heap allocations. Default: enabled.
• REDFAT_CPU_CHECK=0: Disable the CPU compatibility check. This is useful for some virtual machines (e.g., VirtualBox) that incorrectly indicate that Intel BMI/BMI2 is not supported.
• REDFAT_SIGNAL=SIG: If an error occurs, raise signal SIG to terminate the program (or else fall back to abort).
• REDFAT_LOG=N: Set N to be the log-level.

History

LibRedFat is derived (after heavy modification) from the liblowfat.so library, which is part of the LowFat project. Several new features have been added, including:

• Lock-free (thread-local) allocation
• Redzones
• A disjoint metadata for freelists
• Intercepting (and protecting) several common libc functions (memcpy, etc.)
• Several additional hardening options (quarantines, zeroing, canaries).
• Improved ASLR.
• Improved virtual address space management.
• Compatible with LD_PRELOAD.
• Etc.

LibRedFat was originally developed as part of the RedFat project. However, libredfat.so can be used independently of RedFat as a hardened malloc implementation.

LibRedFat is beta quality software, and has not yet been properly tested. It is possible that there are bugs or security vulnerabilities, so should be independently accessed before use in production code. LibRedFat is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Further Reading

• Gregory J. Duck, Yuntong Zhang, Roland H. C. Yap, Hardening Binaries against More Memory Errors, European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys), 2022

License

This software has been released under the MIT License.

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the National Satellite of Excellence in Trustworthy Software Systems, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapore under the National Cybersecurity R&D (NCR) programme.

This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore (Grant No. MOE2018-T2-1-142).