MECHANISM FOR TRACKING TAINTED DATA

The disclosure relates in some aspects to protecting systems and data from maliciously caused destruction. Data integrity is maintained by monitoring data to detect and prevent potential attacks. A mechanism for tracking whether data is tainted is implemented in a Data Flow computer architecture or some other suitable architecture. In some aspects, a taint checking mechanism is implemented within a register file, memory management, and an instruction set of such an architecture. To this end, an indication of whether the data stored in a given physical memory location is tainted is stored along with the physical memory location. For example, a register can include a bit for a corresponding taint flag, a memory page can include a bit for a corresponding taint flag, and an input/output (I/O) port can include a bit for a corresponding taint flag.