For my Ph.D. dissertation, I worked on static analysis tools for programs without source code, with emphasis on security aspects like detecting buffer overruns in binaries, understanding possibly malicious programs (web-plugins, viruses, trojans, ...). Specifically, I developed techniques to obtain an intermediate representation(IR) similar to the IR of a compiler's backend for a given x86 binary executable. These techniques have been implemented as part of CodeSurfer/x86, a prototype tool for browsing ("surfing"), inspecting, and analyzing x86 executables. As a case study, I used CodeSurfer/x86 to find bugs in Windows device drivers.

• WYSINWYX: What You See Is Not What You eXecute, Ph.D. dissertation and Tech. Rep. TR-1603, Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, August 2007.

• Balakrishnan, G., Sankaranarayanan, S., Ivancic, F., and Gupta, A., Refining the Control Structure of Loops using Static Analysis, EMSOFT 2009 (to appear).
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G. and Ganai, M., PED: Proof-guided Error Diagnosis by Triangulation of Program Error Causes, In Proc. of Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM), Cape Town, South Africa, Nov 2008. (to appear)
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G., Sankaranarayanan, S., Ivancic, F., Wei, O., and Gupta, A., SLR: Path-Sensitive Analysis Through Infeasible-Path Detection and Syntactic-Language Refinement. In Proc. Static Analysis Symposium (SAS), Jul 2008.
  
  
• Balakrishnan G. and Reps, T., Analyzing stripped device-driver executables.
  In Proc. Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS), Budapest, Hungary, Apr. 2008.
  
  
• Balakrishnan G. and Reps, T., Recency-abstraction for heap-allocated storage.
  In Proc. 13th Static Analysis Symposium (SAS), Aug. 2006.
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G., Reps, T., Melski, D., and Teitelbaum, T., WYSINWYX: What You See Is Not What You eXecute. In Proc. IFIP Working Conference on Verified Software: Theories, Tools, Experiments, Zurich, Switzerland (VSTTE), Oct. 10-13, 2005.
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G., Reps, T., Kidd, N., Lal, A., Lim, J., Melski, D., Gruian, R., Yong, S., Chen, C.-H., and Teitelbaum, T., Model checking x86 executables with CodeSurfer/x86 and WPDS++, (tool-demonstration paper). In Proc. Computer Aided Verification (CAV), Jul. 2005.
  
  
• Lal, A., Reps, T., and Balakrishnan, G., Extended weighted pushdown systems. In Proc. Conf. on Computer Aided Verification (CAV), Jul. 2005.
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G., Gruian, R., Reps, T. and Teitelbaum, T. CodeSurfer/x86 - A Platform for Analyzing x86 Executables (Tool Demonstration Paper). In Proc. Conf. on Compiler Construction (CC), Apr. 2005.
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G. and Reps, T. Analyzing memory accesses in x86 executables. In Proc. Conf. on Compiler Construction (CC), Apr. 2004. [Won the EAPLS 2004 best paper award]
  
  

• Reps, T. and Balakrishnan, G., Improved Memory-Access Analysis for x86 Executables. In Proc. Compiler Construction, Budapest, Hungary, Apr 2008 (to appear). [Paper accompanying a unifying invited talk at ETAPS 08.]
  
  
• Balakrishnan, G. and Reps, T., DIVINE: DIscovering Variables IN eXecutables. In Proc. Conf. on Verification Model Checking and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI), (Nice, France, Jan 14-17, 2007).
  
  
• Reps, T., Balakrishnan, G., and Lim, J. Intermediate-representation recovery from low-level code. In Proc. Workshop on Partial Evaluation and Program Manipulation (PEPM), (Charleston, SC, Jan. 9-10, 2006).
  
  
• Reps, T., Balakrishnan, G., Lim, J., and Teitelbaum, T., Next-Generation Platform for Analyzing Executables. In Proc. 3rd Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems, (Tsukuba, Japan, Nov. 3-5, 2005).
  
  

• Reps, T., Balakrishnan, G., Lim, J., and Teitelbaum, T., Next-Generation Platform for Analyzing Executables. In Proc. of the ARO-DHS Malware Detection Workshop, (Arlington, VA, Aug 10-11, 2005), Advances in Information Security series, Springer-Verlag.
  
  (Reprinted from Proc. 3rd Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems, Tsukuba, Japan, Nov. 3-5, 2005).
  
  

• Balakrishnan, G., Reps, T., Kidd, N., Lal, A., Lim, J., Melski, D., Gruian, R., Yong, S., Chen, C.-H., and Teitelbaum, T., Model checking x86 executables with CodeSurfer/x86 and WPDS++. In Proc. Workshop on the Evaluation of Software Defect Detection Tools, June 2005. [Co-located with PLDI05.]

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