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WebAssembly (Wasm), as a compact, fast, and isolation-guaranteed binary format, can be compiled from more than 40 high-level programming languages. However, vulnerabilities in Wasm binaries could lead to sensitive data leakage and even…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-08-19 Ningyu He , Zhehao Zhao , Hanqin Guan , Jikai Wang , Shuo Peng , Ding Li , Haoyu Wang , Xiangqun Chen , Yao Guo

We describe Swivel, a new compiler framework for hardening WebAssembly (Wasm) against Spectre attacks. Outside the browser, Wasm has become a popular lightweight, in-process sandbox and is, for example, used in production to isolate…

Wasm runtime is a fundamental component in the Wasm ecosystem, as it directly impacts whether Wasm applications can be executed as expected. Bugs in Wasm runtime bugs are frequently reported, thus our research community has made a few…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-12-19 Shangtong Cao , Ningyu He , Xinyu She , Yixuan Zhang , Mu Zhang , Haoyu Wang

WebAssembly (Wasm) is an emerging binary format that draws great attention from our community. However, Wasm binaries are weakly protected, as they can be read, edited, and manipulated by adversaries using either the officially provided…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-08-08 Shangtong Cao , Ningyu He , Yao Guo , Haoyu Wang

We introduce Wasm Logic, a sound program logic for first-order, encapsulated WebAssembly. We design a novel assertion syntax, tailored to WebAssembly's stack-based semantics and the strong guarantees given by WebAssembly's type system, and…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-05-22 Conrad Watt , Petar Maksimović , Neelakantan R. Krishnaswami , Philippa Gardner

A significant amount of both client and server-side cryptography is implemented in JavaScript. Despite widespread concerns about its security, no other language has been able to match the convenience that comes from its ubiquitous support…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2018-12-18 Conrad Watt , John Renner , Natalie Popescu , Sunjay Cauligi , Deian Stefan

WebAssembly is a new binary instruction format that allows targeted compiled code written in high-level languages to be executed with near-native speed by the browser's JavaScript engine. However, given that WebAssembly binaries can be…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-04-28 Tiago Brito , Pedro Lopes , Nuno Santos , José Fragoso Santos

WebAssembly (Wasm) is a low-level binary format for web applications, which has found widespread adoption due to its improved performance and compatibility with existing software. However, the popularity of Wasm has also led to its…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-05-25 Nils Loose , Felix Mächtle , Claudius Pott , Volodymyr Bezsmertnyi , Thomas Eisenbarth

The increasing adoption of WebAssembly (Wasm) for performance-critical and security-sensitive tasks drives the demand for WebAssembly program comprehension and reverse engineering. Recent studies have introduced machine learning (ML)-based…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-04-05 Hanxian Huang , Jishen Zhao

WebAssembly (Wasm) is a binary instruction format that enables portable, sandboxed, and near-native execution across heterogeneous platforms, making it well-suited for serverless workflow execution on browsers, edge nodes, and cloud…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Mario Colosi , Reza Farahani , Lauri Loven , Radu Prodan , Massimo Villari

WebAssembly (Wasm) is rapidly gaining popularity as a distribution format for software components embedded in various security-critical domains. Unfortunately, despite its prudent design, WebAssembly's primary use case as a compilation…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-09-11 Markus Scherer , Jeppe Fredsgaard Blaabjerg , Alexander Sjösten , Matteo Maffei

WebAssembly (Wasm) is a low-level bytecode format that can run in modern browsers. With the development of standalone runtimes and the improvement of the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI), Wasm has further provided a more complete…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-09-17 Chenxi Mao , Yuxin Su , Shiwen Shan , Dan Li

Most programs compiled to WebAssembly (Wasm) today are written in unsafe languages like C and C++. Unfortunately, memory-unsafe C code remains unsafe when compiled to Wasm -- and attackers can exploit buffer overflows and use-after-frees in…

In recent years, stealthy Android malware has increasingly adopted sophisticated techniques to bypass automatic detection mechanisms and harden manual analysis. Adversaries typically rely on obfuscation, anti-repacking, steganography,…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-02-23 Diego Soi , Silvia Lucia Sanna , Lorenzo Pisu , Leonardo Regano , Giorgio Giacinto

WebAssembly (Wasm) has emerged as a powerful technology for executing high-performance code and reusing legacy code in web browsers. With its increasing adoption, ensuring the reliability of WebAssembly code becomes paramount. In this…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-12-31 Sara Baradaran , Liyan Huang , Mukund Raghothaman , Weihang Wang

All major web browsers now support WebAssembly, a low-level bytecode intended to serve as a compilation target for code written in languages like C and C++. A key goal of WebAssembly is performance parity with native code; previous work…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-04-30 Abhinav Jangda , Bobby Powers , Emery Berger , Arjun Guha

WebAssembly (WASM) is an immensely versatile and increasingly popular compilation target. It executes applications written in several languages (e.g., C/C++) with near-native performance in various domains (e.g., mobile, edge, cloud).…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2024-12-20 Martin Fink , Dimitrios Stavrakakis , Dennis Sprokholt , Soham Chakraborty , Jan-Erik Ekberg , Pramod Bhatotia

WebAssembly is a low-level bytecode language that allows high-level languages like C, C++, and Rust to be executed in the browser at near-native performance. In recent years, WebAssembly has gained widespread adoption is now natively…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-03-25 Håkon Harnes , Donn Morrison

A key strength of managed runtimes over hardware is the ability to gain detailed insight into the dynamic execution of programs with instrumentation. Analyses such as code coverage, execution frequency, tracing, and debugging, are all made…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2024-03-14 Ben L. Titzer , Elizabeth Gilbert , Bradley Wei Jie Teo , Yash Anand , Kazuyuki Takayama , Heather Miller

Differential testing can be an effective way to find bugs in software systems with multiple implementations that conform to the same specification, like compilers, network protocol parsers, or language runtimes. Specifications for such…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-05-07 Nikitha Rao , Elizabeth Gilbert , Harrison Green , Tahina Ramananandro , Nikhil Swamy , Claire Le Goues , Sarah Fakhoury