Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation
Paper*Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation* is a 2024 paper by Flavien Solt, Katharina Ceesay-Seitz, and Kaveh Razavi, published at the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24). Available evidence also includes a public artifact repository with Docker-based reproduction instructions, notes on an optional Questasim experiment, and practical guidance for reproducing figures and plots.
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Last seen 9/16/2026
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Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation is a paper by Flavien Solt, Katharina Ceesay-Seitz, and Kaveh Razavi. It was published in August 2024 at the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24). [C1][C2]
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29 connectionsThe paper presents and introduces Cascade as a new CPU fuzzer.
The paper introduces the novel technique of asymmetric ISA pre-simulation for entangling control flows with data flows.
Katharina Ceesay-Seitz is an author of the Cascade paper.
Kaveh Razavi is an author of the Cascade paper.
Flavien Solt is an author of the Cascade paper.
The paper evaluates RFUZZ as a baseline comparison for Cascade.
The paper evaluates DifuzzRTL as a baseline comparison for Cascade.
The paper introduces a new program reduction method to find minimal bug-triggering programs.
The Float Fight paper cites the Cascade CPU fuzzing paper.
The phrase 'via Intricate Program Generation' indicates the method employed in the work.
The paper is authored by researchers at ETH Zurich.
The paper compares Cascade's performance against DifuzzRTL
The paper compares Cascade's performance against TheHuzz
The paper compares Cascade against RFUZZ on multiplexer select coverage
The paper discusses formal verification as a costly alternative to fuzzing
The paper introduces control flow entanglement with data flow as a key technique of Cascade.
The paper evaluates TheHuzz as a baseline comparison for Cascade.
K. Ceesay-Seitz is an author of the Cascade paper.
F. Solt is an author of the Cascade paper.
The paper mentions HypFuzz as a related tool that Cascade outperforms.
All authors are affiliated with ETH Zurich.
The paper was published in the USENIX Security Symposium proceedings.
The paper introduces bug detection via program non-termination as a key technique.
CPU fuzzing appears in the paper's title, indicating it is a central topic.
The title explicitly names 'Cascade', and a project URL is provided, indicating the paper discusses Cascade.
The paper introduces and open-sources the Cascade source code.
The title explicitly includes CPU, indicating the work concerns CPUs.
K. Razavi is an author of the Cascade paper.
The Cascade paper was published at the USENIX Security Symposium.
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[1] [C1] The paper is titled 'Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation' and is authored by Flavien Solt, Katharina Ceesay-Seitz, and Kaveh Razavi. Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation - BibBase
[2] [C2] USENIX lists the paper at the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24), in August 2024, published by the USENIX Association, pages 5341--5358, Philadelphia, PA. Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation - USENIX
[3] [C3] BibBase provides a paper PDF link and a project URL for Cascade. Cascade: CPU Fuzzing via Intricate Program Generation - BibBase
[4] [C4] The public artifact repository is explicitly for this paper, is intended to help reproduce the paper's results and get started with Cascade, and points to cascade-meta as the location of most fuzzing code. comsec-group/cascade-artifacts
[5] [C5] The artifact README recommends a Docker image, says all experiments except the Questasim experiment run in Docker, describes Questasim as optional and commercial, and notes that some experiments require 64 cores. comsec-group/cascade-artifacts
[6] [C6] For Figure 16, the artifact container uses 30 seconds per point instead of the paper's 1200 seconds; the README says this still supports the claim that longer programs tend to be more efficient at finding bugs, and rebuilding the image takes many hours. comsec-group/cascade-artifacts
[7] [C7] The README recommends Verilator v5.006 if a specific warning appears, and says plots other than the Questasim experiment are stored in /cascade-meta/figures. comsec-group/cascade-artifacts