Mohammed Julfikar Ali Mahbub

Home Institution
BRAC University

Year Participated
2022

Year in School
Graduate

REU Faculty Mentor
Reyhaneh Jabbarvand

Research Area Interest
Artificial Intelligence

Project Title
Greybox Fuzzing as a tool to detect concurrency bugs in Android applications

Biography & Research Abstract

Abstract:
Greybox fuzzing has emerged as a systematic methodology for exposing subtle hard-to-find bugs in many software platforms. In this project, we will explore the effectiveness of the greybox, feedback-driven fuzzing for concurrency testing Android applications. Bugs in android applications can be insidious, and be exposed only under specific inputs. The greater challenge though, which remains unsolved is to make current fuzzing techniques amenable to the event drive world, where, besides the exact input, the precise order in which the inputs are handled (also known as interleaving) also affects the outcome of the app. Exploring all possible interleavings for a given input can lead to very poor scalability, thereby defying the purpose of a technique like fuzzing, which typically wins because of the speed at which it can explore different program paths. The objective of this project is to develop techniques that can effectively navigate the interleaving space, while still preserving the effectiveness and performance of a feedback-driven fuzzing. The expected outcomes of this project are a proficient open-source tool that beats the current state-of-the-art Android testing techniques, can handle a large class of Android apps, and discover concurrency bugs (and possibly security vulnerabilities), which we can report back to the developer of these apps, together with correct patches.

Bio:

Solving real-life problems with technology is my core objective. With this ambition, I graduated from BRAC University, Bangladesh with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science in early 2022. My expertise in programming, data structures, and algorithms helped me to build strong connections with my professors and fellow mates.

Taking a Natural Language Processing (NLP) course as an elective course motivated me to explore the field even further so, I have changed my program from CSE to CS. After completing Cloud Computing and Pattern Recognition, my research interest has become strongly NLP oriented, and joined as a Research Assistant of an NLP course. Integrating my present interest with my preceding interest in Software Engineering and discovering the applications of NLP in modern IDE, I have established my research vision with NLP in Software Engineering.