Dynamic Taint Analysis Tools: A Review

Taint analysis is the trending approach of analysing software for security purposes. By using the taint analysis technique, tainted tags are added to the data entering from the sensitive sources into the applications, then the propagations of the tainted data are monitored carefully. Taint analysis can be done in two ways including static taint analysis where analysis is conducted without executing the program, and dynamic taint analysis where the tainted data is monitored during the program execution. This paper reviews the taint analysis technique, with a focus on dynamic taint analysis. In addition, some of the existing taint analysis tools and their application areas are reviewed. In the end, the paper summarises the defects associated with each of the tools and presents some of them.