System and method for avoiding synchronization bugs through virtualization

A method, for translating computer instructions to be executed by a first virtual machine thread of execution, the method comprising the steps of:

• translating computer instructions to be executed by a first virtual machine thread of execution using physical resources of the computer system;
• identifying, at run time using a binary translator, a vulnerable segment of code in the first virtual machine thread of execution wherein said vulnerable segment comprises computer instructions containing a synchronization bug;
• and
• writing translated computer instructions that are not present in the vulnerable segment to a computer readable medium, wherein the translated computer instructions include computer code in said first virtual machine thread of execution for stalling a second virtual machine thread of execution before executing said vulnerable segment of code.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
• execute a first virtual machine thread of execution using physical resources of the computer system, said first virtual machine thread of execution comprising computer code;
• identify, at runtime using a binary translator, a vulnerable segment within said computer code of said first virtual machine thread of execution, wherein said vulnerable segment comprises computer instructions containing a synchronization bug;
• and
• translate the vulnerable segment using the binary translator to create a translated vulnerable segment, the translating comprising remediating the synchronization bug by introducing code to the translated vulnerable segment that is not present in the vulnerable segment, the introduced code causing a second virtual machine thread of execution to stall during execution of said translated vulnerable segment.

A non-transitory machine readable medium containing a computer program for translating computer instructions to be executed by a first virtual machine thread, the computer program comprising:

• computer code for identifying, at runtime using a binary translator, a vulnerable segment of code, the vulnerable segment of code containing a synchronization bug;
• remediating the synchronization bug by introducing code to translated computer instructions not present in the vulnerable segment;
• and
• computer code for writing said translated computer instructions to a second computer-readable medium, said translated computer instructions containing instructions from the vulnerable segment of code and including computer code causing a second virtual machine thread of execution to stall during execution of said translated computer instructions.