Visualization for Program Understanding
Department
Computer Science
Major
Computer Science
Research Advisor
Tauritz, Daniel R.
Advisor's Department
Computer Science
Funding Source
Sandia National Laboratories
Abstract
Program understanding is of vital importance to gain situational awareness in computing networks, which in turn is crucial to obtaining security of cyber space. Automating program understanding is a current hot topic of research, but for the foreseeable future, human practitioners will have to rely on their human intellect to interpret the ever increasing amounts of data generated by binary analysis program understanding tools. Visualization is one of the most effective methods to enhance their interpretation ability.
This research project has created a web-based binary analysis program understanding visualization interface. Rather than merely replicating single program analysis in visual form, the power of this interface lies in its ability to visualize the commonalities and differences between sets of programs based on criteria which the user can change on the fly. By providing human-centric comparison visualization work-flows, this interface enables discovery of complex insights by human practitioners.
Biography
Luke is currently a Senior in Computer Science, an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Natural Computation Laboratory, and will be returning to Sandia National Laboratories this summer as an intern in the Center for Cyber Defenders. He is currently a tutor for the Introduction to C++ courses (CompSci 53/54 and 74/78). Likely, Luke will continue his research as a Master’s student in Computer Science at S&T in Fall Semester 2015.
Research Category
Sciences
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Location
Upper Atrium/Hall
Presentation Date
16 Apr 2014, 9:00 am - 11:45 am
Visualization for Program Understanding
Upper Atrium/Hall
Program understanding is of vital importance to gain situational awareness in computing networks, which in turn is crucial to obtaining security of cyber space. Automating program understanding is a current hot topic of research, but for the foreseeable future, human practitioners will have to rely on their human intellect to interpret the ever increasing amounts of data generated by binary analysis program understanding tools. Visualization is one of the most effective methods to enhance their interpretation ability.
This research project has created a web-based binary analysis program understanding visualization interface. Rather than merely replicating single program analysis in visual form, the power of this interface lies in its ability to visualize the commonalities and differences between sets of programs based on criteria which the user can change on the fly. By providing human-centric comparison visualization work-flows, this interface enables discovery of complex insights by human practitioners.
