The IFDS algorithm is pivotal in solving field-sensitive data-flow problems. However, its conventional use of access paths for field sensitivity leads to the generation of a large number of data-flow facts. This causes scalability challenges in larger programs, limiting its practical application in extensive codebases. In response, we propose a new field-sensitive technique that reinterprets the generation of access paths as a Context-Free Language (CFL) for field-sensitivity and formulates it as an IDE problem. This approach significantly reduces the number of data-flow facts generated and handled during the analysis, which is a major factor in performance degradation. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, we developed a taint analysis tool, IDEDroid, in the IFDS/IDE framework. IDEDroid outperforms FlowDroid, an established IFDS-based taint analysis tool, in the analysis of 24 major Android apps while improving its precision (guaranteed theoretically). The speed improvement ranges from 2.1 × to 2,368.4 × , averaging at 222.0 × , with precision gains reaching up to 20.0 % (in terms of false positives reduced). This performance indicates that IDEDroid is substantially more effective in detecting information-flow leaks, making it a potentially superior tool for mobile app vetting in the market.

@article{LiS00X24,
  title = {Boosting the Performance of Alias-Aware IFDS Analysis with CFL-Based Environment Transformers},
  author = {Haofeng Li and Chenghang Shi and Jie Lu and Lian Li and Jingling Xue},
  journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages},
  volume = {8},
  number = {OOPSLA2},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.1145/3689804}
}