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February 21, 2026Information and Software Technology0 citationsOpen Access

PatchFuzz: Patch fuzzing for JavaScript engines

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JWJunjie WangTianjin UniversityZXZhihua XieTianjin UniversityXXXiaofei XieSingapore Management University

Key Points

  • The aim is to enhance vulnerability detection in JavaScript engines post-patch using automated techniques.
  • Developed PatchFuzz for automated collection of historical vulnerability PoCs.
  • Focused fuzzing resources on vulnerable code areas through selective instrumentation.
  • Utilized git commits related to security bug fixes for targeted testing.
  • Optimized mutation strategy to effectively use collected PoCs.
  • Discovered 54 vulnerabilities across six popular JavaScript engines.
  • Achieved $62,500 in bounties for identified security issues.
  • Demonstrated effectiveness of enhanced automation in patch fuzzing.

Abstract

Patch fuzzing is a technique aimed at identifying vulnerabilities that arise from newly patched code. While researchers have made efforts to apply patch fuzzing to testing JavaScript (JS) engines with considerable success, these efforts have been limited to using ordinary test cases or publicly available vulnerability PoCs (Proof of Concepts) as seeds, and the sustainability of these approaches is hindered by the challenges associated with automating the PoC collection. To address these limitations, we propose an end-to-end sustainable approach for JS engine patch fuzzing, named PatchFuzz. It automates the collection of PoCs of a broader range of historical vulnerabilities and leverages both the PoCs and their corresponding patches to uncover new vulnerabilities more effectively. PatchFuzz starts by recognizing git commits which intend to fix security bugs. Subsequently, it extracts and processes PoCs from these commits to form the seeds for fuzzing, while utilizing code revisions to focus limited fuzzing resources on the more vulnerable code areas through selective instrumentation. The mutation strategy of PatchFuzz is also optimized to maximize the potential of the PoCs. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of PatchFuzz. Notably, 54 bugs across six popular JS engines have been exposed and a total of 62, 500 bounties has been received. PatchFuzz effectively enables sustainable and automated patch fuzzing for JavaScript engines by leveraging historical PoCs and selective instrumentation to focus on vulnerable code regions.

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Cite This Study

Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69994b01873532290d01f5cbhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2026.108087
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