In an embodiment a software application may include a “baseline trace” indicating proper application execution. The baseline trace may include counts for various types of instructions (e.g., how many times each of a LR instruction and a MV instruction occurs during an execution of code). The finished application includes the baseline trace. Upon execution the application randomly selects which of the various types of instructions to count during execution (e.g., LR or MV instruction) to produce a “real time trace”. The application executes and produces the real-time trace. The baseline trace is then compared to the real-time trace, which is specific to the randomly chosen type of instruction. If the traces are within a pre-determined range of each other the user has a level of assurance the software is operating correctly. Other embodiments are described herein.