Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System
• SEI Report
Publisher
Software Engineering Institute
Topic or Tag
Abstract
Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) is a foundation for creating model-based reliable systems. Its roots are in the safety community, specifically transportation engineering. The conditions for assuring safety and security often overlap, but they are not identical. As part of an investigation into using AADL for security applications, this paper describes a secure coding analysis of the PolyORB-HI-C runtime system used by C language code output from the Ocarina AADL code generator. The overall quality of the code is found to be high. However, several potential out-of-bounds stores were discovered, which opens up the possibility of buffer overflow attacks. The techniques for finding these
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Architecture Analysis & Design Language (AADL): SEI Resources
Cite This SEI Report
Keaton, D. (2015, September 12). Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/.
@techreport{keaton_2015,
author={Keaton, David},
title={Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System},
month={Sep},
year={2015},
institution={Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University},
url={https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/},
note={Accessed: 2026-Sep-17}
}
Keaton, David. "Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, September 12, 2015. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/.
D. Keaton, "Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, 12-Sep-2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/. [Accessed: 17-Sep-2026].
Keaton, David. "Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, 12 Sep. 2015. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/. Accessed 17 Sep. 2026.
Keaton, David. Secure Coding Analysis of an AADL Code Generator's Runtime System. Software Engineering Institute. 2015. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/secure-coding-analysis-of-an-aadl-code-generators-runtime-system/