Research & Development
Papers, government research & open source
Overview
Our applied research focuses on developing open-source tools that make it easier to understand and identify low-level software vulnerabilities. This has motivated our work in binary translation, fuzzing, symbolic execution, fault injection, compilers, and several other areas in program analysis and testing.
Our mission is to find better bugs, be better code reviewers, and engineer safer cryptography. We build prototypes and proofs of concept, and act as a testbed for the security tools of tomorrow. Security, we believe, is much better when policies and products originate from the conclusions of data-driven, scientific studies.
As such, we share our results and release our tools via our blog, Empire Hacking, and peer-reviewed conferences so that the security community, as a whole, can improve through collective knowledge and research. We've been fortunate to work with many dedicated and hard-working academic partners, and we're always interested in forging new collaborations.
Services & deliverables
What ships with every research engagement
Most research vendors publish a paper and call it done. Every Trail of Bits R&D engagement ships a research artifact your team can actually run.
| Deliverable | Trail of Bits | Typical research vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Peer-reviewed publication Submission-quality paper or technical report. | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open-source release Permissively licensed code, plus the build and test infrastructure. | ✓ | Sometimes |
| Working prototype + documentation Not just a paper — a runnable artifact with the engineering rigor for handoff. | ✓ | — |
| Reproducibility package Datasets, configs, and scripts so an outside team can reproduce results. | ✓ | — |
| CI integration patterns Where applicable, the research deliverable ships with the patterns your team needs to integrate it. | ✓ | — |
| Productization roadmap Short- and long-term recommendations for taking the prototype to production. | ✓ | — |
| Knowledge transfer + live walkthroughs Our team trains yours so the work continues after we leave. | ✓ | Sometimes |
[PLACEHOLDER] Confirm rows with research leadership — this list may need additions (e.g., DARPA-specific deliverables, government-program reporting).
Get in touch
Book a technical office hours session
Book a complimentary one-hour meeting with one of our engineers to dive into a challenging technical issue, explore tooling options, and gain valuable insights directly from our experts. This session is purely technical — no sales talk, just a focused discussion that showcases our depth, talent, and capabilities.