A Binary-level Thread Sanitizer - Why Sanitizing on the Binary Level is Hard

Explore a 13-minute conference talk from USENIX Security '24 that delves into the challenges and solutions of binary-level thread sanitization. Learn about BINTSAN, an innovative approach for detecting data races in binary-only Linux x86-64 targets without requiring source code access. Discover how this implementation achieves a mere 15% runtime overhead compared to source-based TSAN and delivers up to 5.0× performance improvement over existing binary solutions. Understand the systematic identification of key challenges in applying sanitizers to binary-only targets, presented by researchers from CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Gain insights into dynamic software testing methods, particularly focusing on closed-source software testing scenarios where traditional source code-based sanitization techniques are not applicable.