PROTECTING DATA ISOLATION PRIMITIVES FROM SIDE CHANNEL LEAKAGE
Abstract
The Spectre and Meltdown revelations have changed the way we think about computers. Speculative execution, which for decades has been considered to be a valuable performance feature, have been discovered to have severe security consequences. Making things worse, the revelations of Spectre and Meltdown in 2018 were not an isolated incident, but instead have opened a Pandora’s box of CPU vulnerabilities, violating the security of nearly all isolation mechanisms. However, side channel attacks are not restricted to just the CPU. Rowhammer is a fault attack, in which repeated activations of memory rows cause nearby rows to lose their electrical charge. Thus, attackers can flip bits in memory of other security domains by merely accessing memory in a specific pattern. Since its discovery in 2014, numerous Rowhammer attacks have been demonstrated, including the recent bypass of nearly all Rowhammer countermeasures. In this project, we aim to break this patch-break-repeat cycle, and offer a systematic protection against side channels.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Source ID
- FA95502010425
Entities
People
- Daniel Genkin
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Board of Regents of the University of Michigan
- United States Air Force