Analyzing the Applicability of AddressSanitizer for Memory Corruption Detection in TrustZone-based OP-TEE Environments 


Vol. 14,  No. 11, pp. 935-939, Nov.  2025
https://doi.org/10.3745/TKIPS.2025.14.11.935


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  Abstract

This paper investigates the applicability of memory error detection techniques within ARM TrustZone-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). While AddressSanitizer (ASAN) and Kernel AddressSanitizer (KASAN) have proven effective in general-purpose operating systems and kernels, their feasibility in restricted execution environments such as TEEs remains insufficiently explored. We experimentally evaluated ASan in the OP-TEE environment on both Trusted Applications (TAs) and the Trusted Kernel (TK), and confirmed that ASAN does not operate properly within TAs. In contrast, the stack canary mechanism was verified to function reliably in both TA and TK. To validate these findings, we performed bug injection tests targeting various memory corruption vulnerabilities, including buffer overflows, use-after-free. Furthermore, we analyzed the causes of ASAN's failure in TAs from the perspectives of execution structure, memory mapping, and loading processes. These results highlight the limitations of applying sanitizer-based runtime detection in TEEs and emphasize the need for alternative memory bug detection approaches.

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[IEEE Style]

K. Boo and B. Lee, "Analyzing the Applicability of AddressSanitizer for Memory Corruption Detection in TrustZone-based OP-TEE Environments," The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 935-939, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3745/TKIPS.2025.14.11.935.

[ACM Style]

Kyungwook Boo and Byoungyoung Lee. 2025. Analyzing the Applicability of AddressSanitizer for Memory Corruption Detection in TrustZone-based OP-TEE Environments. The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society, 14, 11, (2025), 935-939. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3745/TKIPS.2025.14.11.935.

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