Peter Sewell

VIP: verifying real-world C idioms with integer-pointer casts

2022 · Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

Systems code often requires fine-grained control over memory layout and pointers, expressed using low-level ( e.g. , bitwise) operations on pointer values. Since these operations go beyond what basic pointer arithmetic in C allows, they …

CHERI: Hardware-Enabled C/C++ Memory Protection at Scale

2024 · IEEE Security & Privacy

The memory-safe Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions (CHERI) C and C++ languages build on architectural capabilities in the CHERI protection model. With the development of two industrial CHERI-enabled processors, Arm’s Morello and Microsoft’s CHERIoT, CHERI …

Morello-Cerise: A Proof of Strong Encapsulation for the Arm Morello Capability Hardware Architecture

2025 · Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

When designing new architectural security mechanisms, a key question is whether they actually provide the intended security, but this has historically been very hard to assess. One cannot gain much confidence by testing, as such …