Hardware support for memory protection in sensor nodes

With reference to the typical hardware configuration of a sensor node, we present the architecture of a memory protection unit (MPU) designed as a low-complexity addition to the microcontroller. The MPU is aimed at supporting memory protection and the privileged execution mode. It is connected to the system buses, and is seen by the processor as a memory-mapped input/output device. The contents of the internal MPU registers specify the composition of the protection contexts of the running program in terms of access rights for the memory pages. The MPU generates a hardware interrupt to the processor when it detects a protection violation. The proposed MPU architecture is evaluated from a number of salient viewpoints, which include the distribution, review and revocation of access permissions, and the support for important memory protection paradigms, including hierarchical contexts and protection rings

Architectural support for safe software execution on embedded processors

The lack of memory safety in many popular programming languages, including C and C++, has been a cause for great concern in the realm of software reliability, verification, and more recently, system security. Despite their limitations, the flexibility, performance, and ease of use of these languages have made them the choice of most embedded software developers. Researchers have proposed various techniques to enhance programs for memory safety; however, they are all subject to severe performance penalties, making their use impractical in most scenarios. In this paper, we present architectural enhancements to enable efficient, memory-safe execution of software on embedded processors. The key insight behind our approach is to extend embedded processors with hardware that significantly accelerates the execution of th