Patent ID: 7526758

Claim:
A method for debugging a software execution failure, said method comprising: retrieving a static memory address A Φ associated with a physical location in system memory where a security cookie is stored, said security cookie having been corrupted during a software execution failure; identifying an instruction that operated on said static memory address A Φ ; analyzing said instruction to determine a logical location ε on a call stack of said security cookie; identifying at least one data structure proximate to said logical location ε; and identifying at least one function that operates on at least one data structure from among said at least one data structures proximate to said logical location ε in a manner identified as possibly causing said security cookie to become corrupted, said identifying at least one function comprising; creating a call graph for a function f θ that was operating immediately prior to said software execution failure; pruning said call graph by eliminating call graph data regarding any functions called by function f θ which are not called with one of said at least one data structures as a parameter; and performing static analysis to identify any functions remaining on said call graph that operate on at least one data structure from among said at least one data structures proximate to said logical location ε in a manner identified as possibly causing said secuity cookie to become corrupted.