Countering network worms through automatic patch generation

To counter zero-day worms that exploit software flaws such as buffer overflows, this end-point architecture uses source code transformations to automatically create and test software patches for vulnerable segments of targeted applications. Recent incidents have demonstrated the ability of self-propagating code, or network worms, to infect numerous hosts, exploiting vulnerabilities in the largely homogeneous deployed software base. 1,2 Such activities often have an impact on the offline world as well, 3 by indirectly affecting critical infrastructure such as the transportation, finance, and energy sectors. Even when a worm carries no malicious payload, there are tremendous direct recovery costs from an infection epidemic’s side effects. Thus, researchers are increasingl