Fuzzing and the quest for safer software
The Buzz on Fuzz
Fuzzing is an important method for finding bugs and security vulnerabilities in software. Read on to find out what fuzzing is and which methods are commonly used today.
It was a dark and stormy night. Bart Miller – you'll find an interview with him at the end of our feature – was working at home, connected by 1200-baud modem to the University of Wisconsin's mainframe computer. But every thunderclap meant that something went wrong: the lightning strikes disrupted data transmission over the phone line and garbled individual characters, forcing Miller to start over time and time again.
Each time he restarted, he noticed how many programs couldn't cope with disrupted data – they crashed, hung up, or otherwise stopped working in some uncontrollable way. Shouldn't programs do much better with invalid or glitched input? Miller decided to have his students systematically investigate this problem and gave them a programming assignment.
That night in the fall of 1988 is considered the birth of fuzz testing, by far the most important method today for testing programs for robustness and checking for security vulnerabilities. Professional programmers routinely use fuzzing to check for problems that could occur in the wild and might not be easy to anticipate. However, fuzzing is still a mystery to many part-time programmers and advanced users who program informally (including many in the Linux community). This month we take a close look at fuzzing and why it is so important.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.
-
Introducing matrixOS, an Immutable Gentoo-Based Linux Distro
It was only a matter of time before a developer decided one of the most challenging Linux distributions needed to be immutable.
-
Chaos Comes to KDE in KaOS
KaOS devs are making a major change to the distribution, and it all comes down to one system.
-
New Linux Botnet Discovered
The SSHStalker botnet uses IRC C2 to control systems via legacy Linux kernel exploits.
-
The Next Linux Kernel Turns 7.0
Linus Torvalds has announced that after Linux kernel 6.19, we'll finally reach the 7.0 iteration stage.
-
Linux From Scratch Drops SysVinit Support
LFS will no longer support SysVinit.
-
LibreOffice 26.2 Now Available
With new features, improvements, and bug fixes, LibreOffice 26.2 delivers a modern, polished office suite without compromise.