research-article

Inspection resistant memory: architectural support for security from physical examination

Authors:

Jonathan Valamehr,

Vinod Vaikuntanathan,

Timothy SherwoodAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, Volume 40, Issue 3

Pages 130 - 141

https://doi.org/10.1145/2366231.2337174

Published: 09 June 2012 Publication History

Abstract

The ability to safely keep a secret in memory is central to the vast majority of security schemes, but storing and erasing these secrets is a difficult problem in the face of an attacker who can obtain unrestricted physical access to the underlying hardware. Depending on the memory technology, the very act of storing a 1 instead of a 0 can have physical side effects measurable even after the power has been cut. These effects cannot be hidden easily, and if the secret stored on chip is of sufficient value, an attacker may go to extraordinary means to learn even a few bits of that information. Solving this problem requires a new class of architectures that measurably increase the difficulty of physical analysis. In this paper we take a first step towards this goal by focusing on one of the backbones of any hardware system: on-chip memory. We examine the relationship between security, area, and efficiency in these architectures, and quantitatively examine the resulting systems through cryptographic analysis and microarchitectural impact. In the end, we are able to find an efficient scheme in which, even if an adversary is able to inspect the value of a stored bit with a probabilistic error of only 5%, our system will be able to prevent that adversary from learning any information about the original un-coded bits with 99.9999999999% probability.

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Xu LLee JKim SZheng QXu SSuh TRo WShi W(2018)Architectural Protection of Application Privacy against Software and Physical Attacks in Untrusted Cloud EnvironmentIEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing10.1109/TCC.2015.25117286:2(478-491)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCC.2015.2511728
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Keshavarz SHolcomb D(2017)Threshold-based obfuscated keys with quantifiable security against invasive readout2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD.2017.8203760(57-64)Online publication date: Nov-2017
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Inspection resistant memory: architectural support for security from physical examination
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Published In

cover image ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 40, Issue 3

ISCA '12

June 2012

559 pages

ISSN:0163-5964

DOI:10.1145/2366231

Issue’s Table of Contents

ISCA '12: Proceedings of the 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture
June 2012
584 pages
ISBN:9781450316422
General Chair:
Shih-Lien Lu
Intel
,
Program Chair:
Josep Torrellas
University of Illinois

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

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Published: 09 June 2012

Published in SIGARCH Volume 40, Issue 3

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Cited By

Xu LLee JKim SZheng QXu SSuh TRo WShi W(2018)Architectural Protection of Application Privacy against Software and Physical Attacks in Untrusted Cloud EnvironmentIEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing10.1109/TCC.2015.25117286:2(478-491)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCC.2015.2511728
Xia YLiu YGuan HChen YChen TZang BChen H(2017)Secure Outsourcing of Virtual ApplianceIEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing10.1109/TCC.2015.24696575:3(390-404)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCC.2015.2469657
Keshavarz SHolcomb D(2017)Threshold-based obfuscated keys with quantifiable security against invasive readout2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD.2017.8203760(57-64)Online publication date: Nov-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCAD.2017.8203760
McMahan JCui WXia LHeckey JChong FSherwood T(2017)Challenging on-chip SRAM security with boot-state statistics2017 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST)10.1109/HST.2017.7951806(101-105)Online publication date: May-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/HST.2017.7951806
Mishra PPilli EVaradharajan VTupakula U(2017)Intrusion detection techniques in cloud environmentJournal of Network and Computer Applications10.1016/j.jnca.2016.10.01577:C(18-47)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jnca.2016.10.015
Kannan SKarimi NSinanoglu OKarri R(2015)Security Vulnerabilities of Emerging Nonvolatile Main Memories and CountermeasuresIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2014.236974134:1(2-15)Online publication date: Jan-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCAD.2014.2369741
Luo XLiu DLiang LLi YZhong KLiang L(2015)MobiLock: an energy-aware encryption mechanism for NVRAM-based mobile devices2015 IEEE Non-Volatile Memory System and Applications Symposium (NVMSA)10.1109/NVMSA.2015.7304368(1-6)Online publication date: Aug-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/NVMSA.2015.7304368
Li XKashyap VOberg JTiwari MRajarathinam VKastner RSherwood THardekopf BChong F(2014)SapperACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2654822.254194742:1(97-112)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2654822.2541947
Li XKashyap VOberg JTiwari MRajarathinam VKastner RSherwood THardekopf BChong F(2014)SapperACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2644865.254194749:4(97-112)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2644865.2541947
Kannan SKarimi NSinanoglu O(2014)Secure memristor-based main memory2014 51st ACM/EDAC/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC)10.1109/DAC.2014.6881505(1-6)Online publication date: Jun-2014
https://doi.org/10.1109/DAC.2014.6881505
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