SYSYPHUZZ

SYSYPHUZZ

Syzkaller-based kernel fuzzer targeting low-frequency code regions with coverage-guided scheduling.

Kernel fuzzer extending Syzkaller with selective task scheduling to prioritize low-frequency basic blocks and context-preserving mutations. Introduces warm-up mode with basic-block hit-count tracking via kcov instrumentation. Achieves better coverage of rare but bug-prone kernel code paths.

Fuzzing
Key facts
Maturity
Support
C4DT
Inactive
Lab
Active
  • Technical

HexHive Group

HexHive Group
Mathias Payer

Prof. Mathias Payer

Our research focuses on software and systems security. Despite efforts and improvements in bug discovery techniques, some exploitable vulnerabilities will remain. We target techniques that both enable developers to discover and remove bugs and make programs resilient against the exploitation of unknown or unpatched vulnerabilities.
To discover bugs we propose
  • (i) sanitization techniques that enforce a security property such as memory or type safety; given concrete program input, our sanitizers then flag any property violations
  • (ii) fuzzing techniques that leverage static and dynamic analysis to create program inputs to explore program areas that are not yet covered through existing test cases.
To protect against exploitable vulnerabilities, we focus on control-flow integrity using specific language semantics, enforcing type integrity, and protecting selective data. Under this premise, we focus on compiler-based, runtime-based, and language-based protection mechanisms and security policies that increase the resilience of applications against attacks (in the presence of software vulnerabilities).
All prototypes are released as open-source.

This page was last edited on 2026-03-03.