On-chip system call tracing: A feasibility study and open prototype

Several tools for program tracing and introspection exist. These tools can be used to analyze potentially malicious or untrusted programs. In this setting, it is important to prevent that the target program determines whether it is being traced or not. This is typically achieved by minimizing the code of the introspection routines and any artifact or side-effect that the program can leverage. Indeed, the most recent approaches consist of lightly instrumented operating systems or thin hypervisors running directly on bare metal.