Practical Considerations Of Fuzzing: Generating Insight into Areas of Risk

For an introduction to the motivations and concepts of fuzzing, please see the article by Baker1 on page 42 of this issue of Horizons. Additional background on fuzzing also has been reported previously.2 If you read the the article by Baker, you are probably convinced that fuzzing is a crucial part of any software development life cycle or validation and verification process. What now? How can you get started? This article describes where the rubber meets the road, starting from making a plan and progressing through how discovered vulnerabilities can be fixed. It provides an overview on mapping the attack surface of your target, prioritizing attack vectors, and creating a test plan. Specific recommendations on desirable fuzzer features also are described, as well as details on instrumentation, fuzzing roles, and how to help developers fix located vulnerabilities. Note that some portions of this article were adapted from the Fuzz Testing Maturity Model (FTMM).3