Akshay Kumar

Summary: Trail of Bits published a January 21, 2019 post by Akshay Kumar describing how McSema, its binary lifter, handles C++ exceptions. The post notes that the non-local control-flow throw and catch operations in C++ source do not map neatly to straightforward binary representations, and that the compiler, runtime, and stack unwinding library work together to make exceptions function.
Why it matters: Binary lifting underpins analysis of compiled code, and C++ exception handling is a case where the compiler, runtime, and unwinding library cooperate in ways that resist a clean binary representation - a gap that matters to anyone relying on lifted binaries to understand what a program actually does.

Read the original at Trail of Bits Blog ↗