[Paper] HALF: Process Hollowing Analysis Framework for Binary Programs with the Assistance of Kernel Modules

Source: arXiv - 2512.22043v1

Overview

The paper introduces HALF, a novel framework that blends kernel‑mode modules with traditional dynamic binary instrumentation to make fine‑grained analysis (e.g., dynamic taint tracking) faster and easier to deploy on Windows binaries. By leveraging process hollowing inside a container‑like sandbox, HALF can instrument a target program with minimal performance impact while still exposing deep runtime state to analysts.

Key Contributions

• Hybrid instrumentation architecture – combines user‑space dynamic binary instrumentation (DBI) with a lightweight kernel driver to offload costly operations.
• Process‑hollowing‑based sandbox – creates an isolated analysis environment by injecting a “hollow” container process, decoupling the analysis workload from the original program’s execution.
• Reuse of existing DBI toolchains – HALF works on top of popular DBI platforms (e.g., Intel Pin, DynamoRIO), so existing instrumentation scripts need little or no modification.
• Performance‑focused design – kernel‑assisted memory accesses and taint propagation dramatically reduce the memory footprint and runtime overhead compared with pure user‑space solutions.
• Comprehensive evaluation – benchmarks on standard suites (SPEC, Phoronix) and real‑world malware/exploit samples demonstrate both correctness and a 2–5× speedup over state‑of‑the‑art DBI‑only approaches.

Methodology

1. Kernel Module Hook – A small Windows kernel driver intercepts low‑level memory operations (reads/writes, page faults) and exposes an API that the user‑space DBI engine can call. This avoids the heavy context switches typical of pure user‑space taint tracking.
2. Process Hollowing Container – Instead of instrumenting the original target directly, HALF spawns a benign “container” process, strips its original code, and maps the target binary into the container’s address space. The container runs under the DBI engine, while the original process remains untouched.
3. Decoupled Analysis Loop – The DBI engine performs instrumentation (e.g., inserting taint‑propagation callbacks) as usual, but any heavy memory‑intensive work is delegated to the kernel driver. Communication is done via fast shared memory queues.
4. Instrumentation Reuse – Existing Pin/DynamoRIO scripts are loaded unchanged; HALF automatically rewrites memory‑access instrumentation to call the kernel‑assisted routines.
5. Evaluation Pipeline – The authors run a battery of micro‑benchmarks, full‑application suites, and a curated set of exploit/malware samples, measuring execution time, memory consumption, and detection accuracy.

Results & Findings

• Correctness: Taint propagation results matched those of the pure DBI baseline in 100 % of test cases.
• Stability: The process‑hollowing container survived long‑running workloads (> 2 hours) without crashes.
• Usability: Existing instrumentation scripts required <5 % code changes to run under HALF.

Practical Implications

• Security tooling – Antivirus, EDR, and sandbox vendors can integrate HALF to get deeper insight (e.g., precise data‑flow tracking) without the performance penalties that currently force them to rely on coarse heuristics.
• Exploit research – Researchers can replay complex memory‑corruption exploits in a controlled environment, observing exact taint flows and memory state changes in near‑real‑time.
• DevOps & CI – Teams can embed fine‑grained binary analysis into build pipelines for native Windows components, catching unsafe memory patterns before release.
• Low‑overhead sandboxing – The container‑based approach isolates the target binary while preserving its original execution semantics, making it suitable for cloud‑based malware analysis services where resource efficiency is critical.

Limitations & Future Work

• Windows‑only – The current prototype relies on Windows kernel APIs; porting to Linux/macOS would require a different driver model.
• Kernel driver maintenance – Deploying a signed driver in production environments can be a hurdle due to driver signing policies and potential security concerns.
• Scope of instrumentation – While most DBI callbacks are supported, highly custom instrumentation that manipulates control flow at the kernel level may need additional adaptation.
• Future directions suggested by the authors include: extending HALF to support multi‑process workloads, automating the generation of kernel‑assisted wrappers for new DBI platforms, and exploring hardware‑assisted taint tracking (e.g., Intel PT) as a complementary acceleration path.

Authors

• Zhangbo Long
• Letian Sha
• Jiaye Pan
• Dongpeng Xu
• Yifei Huang
• Fu Xiao

Paper Information

• arXiv ID: 2512.22043v1
• Categories: cs.SE
• Published: December 26, 2025
• PDF: Download PDF