Vatsal Patel

17 papers B 1Journal 8Unranked 8
YearRankTypeTitle / Venue / Authors
2025 J jnl
BioData Min.
Subrata Das, Vatsal Patel, Shouvik Chakravarty, Arnab Ghosh, Anirban Mukhopadhyay, Nidhan K. Biswas
2025 J jnl
Annu. Rev. Control.
James C. Peyton Jones, Vatsal Patel, Jesse C. Frey
2023 J jnl
IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol.
James C. Peyton Jones, Jesse C. Frey, Vatsal Patel
2022 conf
ADMA (1)
Vatsal Patel, Sutharshan Rajasegarar, Lei Pan, Jiajun Liu, Liming Zhu
2021 conf
COMAD/CODS
Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Tapan Pathak, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali, John G. Breslin
2020 conf
IOT Companion
Bhavin Joshi, Tapan Pathak, Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali
2020 J jnl
CoRR
Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Tapan Pathak, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali, John G. Breslin
2020 J jnl
CoRR
Tapan Pathak, Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Shailesh Arya, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali, John G. Breslin
2020 conf
IOT
Tapan Pathak, Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Shailesh Arya, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali
2020 J jnl
CoRR
Bhavin Joshi, Tapan Pathak, Vatsal Patel, Sarth Kanani, Pankesh Patel, Muhammad Intizar Ali, John G. Breslin
2020 B conf
NSS
Vatsal Patel, Lei Pan, Sutharshan Rajasegarar
2019 conf
ISMR
Brijen Thananjeyan, Ajay Kumar Tanwani, Jessica J. Ji, Danyal Fer, Vatsal Patel, Sanjay Krishnan, Ken Goldberg
2018 conf
CASE
Jessica J. Ji, Sanjay Krishnan, Vatsal Patel, Danyal Fer, Ken Goldberg
2018 conf
ISMR
Vatsal Patel, Sanjay Krishnan, Aimee Goncalves, Ken Goldberg
2018 conf
ISMR
Vatsal Patel, Sanjay Krishnan, Aimee Goncalves, Carolyn Chen, Walter Doug Boyd, Ken Goldberg
2017 J jnl
CoRR
Vatsal Patel, Sanjay Krishnan, Aimee Goncalves, Ken Goldberg
2017 J jnl
CoRR
Vatsal Patel, Sanjay Krishnan, Aimee Goncalves, Carolyn Chen, Walter Doug Boyd, Ken Goldberg
redb/extractors/decompiler/apk/smali_normalization.py
← Index redb/extractors/decompiler/apk/smali_normalization.py python
"""Semantic normalization of Dalvik/smali instructions.

Analogous to Binary Ninja's LLIL normalization: strips register allocation
noise and instruction encoding variants while preserving semantic operations.

Three normalization levels (most aggressive to most detailed):
  - 'category':    semantic category only (MOV, ALU, CALL, ...)
  - 'opcode':      base opcode, width-invariant (add, sub, invoke, ...)
  - 'opcode_api':  opcode category + API method/field references for
                   invoke/field/alloc instructions (default for MinHash)

References:
  - Smali+ 12-category reduction (Canfora et al.)
  - MOSDroid opcode family grouping
  - DroidSIFT/DroidSim API-sensitive similarity
"""

import re
from typing import List

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Dalvik opcode -> semantic category mapping
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Prefix-matched against instruction opcodes. Order matters for overlapping
# prefixes (longer/more-specific prefixes should come first in iteration,
# but since we use startswith and break on first match, we order by
# specificity within the list).

OPCODE_CATEGORIES = {
    # Arithmetic/logic
    "add": "ALU", "sub": "ALU", "mul": "ALU", "div": "ALU",
    "rem": "ALU", "and": "ALU", "or": "ALU", "xor": "ALU",
    "shl": "ALU", "shr": "ALU", "ushr": "ALU", "neg": "ALU",
    "not": "ALU",
    # Data movement
    "move": "MOV", "const": "CONST",
    # Memory access (field/array)
    "iget": "LOAD", "sget": "LOAD", "aget": "LOAD",
    "iput": "STORE", "sput": "STORE", "aput": "STORE",
    # Invocations
    "invoke": "CALL",
    # Control flow
    "if": "BRANCH", "goto": "JMP",
    "switch": "SWITCH",
    "return": "RET",
    # Object/type
    "new": "ALLOC", "check": "TYPE", "instance": "TYPE",
    # Array
    "fill": "ARR", "array": "ARR",
    # Comparison
    "cmpl": "CMP", "cmpg": "CMP", "cmp": "CMP",
    # Exception / synchronization
    "throw": "EXC", "monitor": "SYNC",
    # Conversion (int-to-long, float-to-int, etc.)
    "int-to": "CONV", "long-to": "CONV", "float-to": "CONV",
    "double-to": "CONV",
}

# Pre-compiled regexes for operand extraction
_METHOD_REF_RE = re.compile(r"(L[\w/$]+;->[\w<>]+\(.*?\)[\w/$;\[]*)")
_FIELD_REF_RE = re.compile(r"(L[\w/$]+;->[\w]+:[\w/$;\[]+)")
_CLASS_REF_RE = re.compile(r"(L[\w/$]+;)")
_CONST_STRING_RE = re.compile(r'^const-string(?:/jumbo)?\s')


def categorize_opcode(opcode: str) -> str:
    """Map a Dalvik opcode to its semantic category.

    Prefix-matched: 'add-int/2addr' matches 'add' -> 'ALU'.
    Returns 'OTHER' for unrecognized opcodes.
    """
    for prefix, cat in OPCODE_CATEGORIES.items():
        if opcode.startswith(prefix):
            return cat
    return "OTHER"


# Mapping from semantic categories to the ACFG feature vector indices
# used by Binary Ninja's build_block_features (cfg_features.py).
# This enables cross-platform ACFG feature comparison.
CATEGORY_TO_ACFG_INDEX = {
    "ALU": 0,       # CAT_ARITHMETIC
    "CONV": 0,      # arithmetic-adjacent
    "CMP": 4,       # CAT_COMPARISON
    "MOV": 2,       # CAT_TRANSFER
    "CONST": 2,     # transfer-adjacent (loading constants)
    "LOAD": 5,      # CAT_MEMORY
    "STORE": 5,     # CAT_MEMORY
    "CALL": 3,      # CAT_CALL
    "BRANCH": 1,    # CAT_LOGIC (conditional logic)
    "JMP": 1,       # CAT_LOGIC
    "SWITCH": 1,    # CAT_LOGIC
    "RET": 2,       # CAT_TRANSFER
    "ALLOC": 5,     # CAT_MEMORY (heap allocation)
    "TYPE": 6,      # CAT_OTHER
    "ARR": 5,       # CAT_MEMORY
    "EXC": 6,       # CAT_OTHER
    "SYNC": 6,      # CAT_OTHER
    "OTHER": 6,     # CAT_OTHER
}


def normalize_instruction(line: str, level: str = "opcode_api") -> str:
    """Normalize a single smali instruction line.

    Args:
        line: A single smali instruction (whitespace-stripped).
        level: Normalization level:
            'category'   - most aggressive: just semantic category
            'opcode'     - base opcode only, width/addressing-mode invariant
            'opcode_api' - category + API references for invoke/field/alloc
                          (default, best for MinHash similarity)

    Returns:
        Normalized instruction string, or empty string for non-instructions.
    """
    stripped = line.strip()
    if not stripped:
        return ""

    parts = stripped.split(None, 1)
    opcode = parts[0]
    operands = parts[1] if len(parts) > 1 else ""

    if level == "category":
        return categorize_opcode(opcode)

    if level == "opcode":
        # Strip type/width suffixes for invariance:
        # add-int, add-long, add-float -> 'add'
        # add-int/2addr -> 'add'
        base = re.split(r"[-/]", opcode)[0]
        return base

    if level == "opcode_api":
        # const-string: preserve string content (encrypted strings are a
        # key malware indicator)
        if _CONST_STRING_RE.match(stripped):
            # Extract the string literal
            str_match = re.search(r'"(.*)"', operands)
            if str_match:
                return f"CONST_STR \"{str_match.group(1)}\""
            return "CONST_STR"

        # invoke-*: preserve method reference
        if opcode.startswith("invoke"):
            ref = _METHOD_REF_RE.search(operands)
            if ref:
                return f"CALL {ref.group(1)}"
            return "CALL"

        # Field access: preserve field reference
        if opcode.startswith(("iget", "iput", "sget", "sput")):
            ref = _FIELD_REF_RE.search(operands)
            if ref:
                cat = "LOAD" if "get" in opcode else "STORE"
                return f"{cat} {ref.group(1)}"
            # Fallback: try space-separated format from androguard
            # e.g. "iget v0, p0, Lcom/Foo;->field Ljava/lang/String;"
            space_ref = re.search(
                r"(L[\w/$]+;->[\w]+)\s+([\w/$;\[]+)", operands
            )
            if space_ref:
                cat = "LOAD" if "get" in opcode else "STORE"
                return f"{cat} {space_ref.group(1)}:{space_ref.group(2)}"
            cat = "LOAD" if "get" in opcode else "STORE"
            return cat

        # new-instance: preserve allocated type
        if opcode.startswith("new-instance") or opcode == "new-array":
            ref = _CLASS_REF_RE.search(operands)
            if ref:
                return f"ALLOC {ref.group(1)}"
            return "ALLOC"

        # Everything else: just the category
        return categorize_opcode(opcode)

    # Unknown level: return raw opcode
    return opcode


def normalize_method_body(
    body: str, level: str = "opcode_api"
) -> List[str]:
    """Normalize all instructions in a smali method body.

    Filters out directives (.), labels (:), comments (#), and blank lines.
    Returns a list of normalized instruction strings.

    Args:
        body: Raw smali method body text.
        level: Normalization level (see normalize_instruction).

    Returns:
        List of normalized instruction strings (no empty strings).
    """
    normalized = []
    for line in body.split("\n"):
        stripped = line.strip()
        # Skip non-instructions
        if not stripped:
            continue
        if stripped.startswith((".",":", "#")):
            continue
        result = normalize_instruction(stripped, level)
        if result:
            normalized.append(result)
    return normalized