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An In-depth Study of MPU-Based Isolation Techniques

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Abstract

Many attacks have been reported and published targeting constrained embedded systems. Attackers try to exploit vulnerabilities through all possible layers of abstraction. A single vulnerability can be enough to take over the whole device and change its intended behavior. Hardware/software isolation architectures implemented in embedded devices provide access control mechanisms to establish a protected execution environment and guarantee the behavior of the running applications. They enforce the boundaries to stop a malicious flaw from propagating from one application to others, especially those that are critical. They represent a form of resilience to different exploits. This paper provides a detailed study of existing memory protection unit-based isolation architectures for lightweight devices and defines four important criteria to evaluate and compare architectures from both academia and industry. Outcomes of this work will help developers and hardware designers to find balance between performance and security.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Maxim Integrated, La Ciotat, France

    Abderrahmane Sensaoui & Stephane Di Vito

  2. University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, LCIS, Grenoble, France

    Abderrahmane Sensaoui, Oum-El-Kheir Aktouf & David Hely

Authors
  1. Abderrahmane Sensaoui
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  2. Oum-El-Kheir Aktouf
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  3. David Hely
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  4. Stephane Di Vito
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Correspondence to Abderrahmane Sensaoui.

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Sensaoui, A., Aktouf, OEK., Hely, D. et al. An In-depth Study of MPU-Based Isolation Techniques. J Hardw Syst Secur 3, 365–381 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41635-019-00078-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41635-019-00078-6

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