1,360 research outputs found
CacheZoom: How SGX Amplifies The Power of Cache Attacks
In modern computing environments, hardware resources are commonly shared, and
parallel computation is widely used. Parallel tasks can cause privacy and
security problems if proper isolation is not enforced. Intel proposed SGX to
create a trusted execution environment within the processor. SGX relies on the
hardware, and claims runtime protection even if the OS and other software
components are malicious. However, SGX disregards side-channel attacks. We
introduce a powerful cache side-channel attack that provides system adversaries
a high resolution channel. Our attack tool named CacheZoom is able to virtually
track all memory accesses of SGX enclaves with high spatial and temporal
precision. As proof of concept, we demonstrate AES key recovery attacks on
commonly used implementations including those that were believed to be
resistant in previous scenarios. Our results show that SGX cannot protect
critical data sensitive computations, and efficient AES key recovery is
possible in a practical environment. In contrast to previous works which
require hundreds of measurements, this is the first cache side-channel attack
on a real system that can recover AES keys with a minimal number of
measurements. We can successfully recover AES keys from T-Table based
implementations with as few as ten measurements.Comment: Accepted at Conference on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems
(CHES '17
A Survey of Techniques for Improving Security of GPUs
Graphics processing unit (GPU), although a powerful performance-booster, also
has many security vulnerabilities. Due to these, the GPU can act as a
safe-haven for stealthy malware and the weakest `link' in the security `chain'.
In this paper, we present a survey of techniques for analyzing and improving
GPU security. We classify the works on key attributes to highlight their
similarities and differences. More than informing users and researchers about
GPU security techniques, this survey aims to increase their awareness about GPU
security vulnerabilities and potential countermeasures
A software approach to defeating side channels in last-level caches
We present a software approach to mitigate access-driven side-channel attacks
that leverage last-level caches (LLCs) shared across cores to leak information
between security domains (e.g., tenants in a cloud). Our approach dynamically
manages physical memory pages shared between security domains to disable
sharing of LLC lines, thus preventing "Flush-Reload" side channels via LLCs. It
also manages cacheability of memory pages to thwart cross-tenant "Prime-Probe"
attacks in LLCs. We have implemented our approach as a memory management
subsystem called CacheBar within the Linux kernel to intervene on such side
channels across container boundaries, as containers are a common method for
enforcing tenant isolation in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) clouds. Through
formal verification, principled analysis, and empirical evaluation, we show
that CacheBar achieves strong security with small performance overheads for
PaaS workloads
- …