Lab 3: Execution Laboratory
Trigger benign programs by different execution mechanisms and read the traces those triggers leave behind.
The brief
Run benign programs under different execution triggers and analyse the execution traces each trigger produces.
An architecture on paper still has to run somewhere. This lab addresses that step: how code actually gets executed, the range of triggers and execution environments available to it, and the perennial problem every piece of software, malicious or otherwise, has to solve: how does this thing actually start?
Working with benign programs only, students trigger execution through several different mechanisms and read the resulting traces, building an understanding of how the choice of trigger shapes both the resulting behaviour and the evidence that behaviour leaves for an investigator to find later.
What you submit
- A record of each trigger tested and the execution trace it produced
- A short analysis of what evidence each trigger leaves behind
Due: 17 August 2027 ·Weight: 2% of the course grade
How it is marked
Assessed on whether the analysis connects execution conditions to the behaviour and evidence they produce, not just the traces themselves.
Key dates
- Submission due: 17 August 2027
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- submitted by the deadline, in the format named below
- connects each execution trigger tested to the trace evidence it leaves
- records every trigger tested, along with the trace each one produced
- explains what evidence each trigger leaves behind for an investigator to find later
- shows how the choice of trigger shapes both the resulting behaviour and the evidence available afterward