extended-abstract

Intel MPX Explained: A Cross-layer Analysis of the Intel MPX System Stack

Authors:

Oleksii Oleksenko,

Dmitrii Kuvaiskii,

Pramod Bhatotia,

Christof FetzerAuthors Info & Claims

SIGMETRICS '18: Abstracts of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

Pages 111 - 112

https://doi.org/10.1145/3219617.3219662

Published: 12 June 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Memory-safety violations are the primary cause of security and reliability issues in software systems written in unsafe languages. Given the limited adoption of decades-long research in software-based memory safety approaches, as an alternative, Intel released Memory Protection Extensions (MPX)---a hardware-assisted technique to achieve memory safety. In this work, we perform an exhaustive study of Intel MPX architecture along three dimensions: (a) performance overheads, (b) security guarantees, and (c) usability issues.

We present the first detailed root cause analysis of problems in the Intel MPX architecture through a cross-layer dissection of the entire system stack, involving the hardware, operating system, compilers, and applications. To put our findings into perspective, we also present an in-depth comparison of Intel MPX with three prominent types of software-based memory safety approaches. Lastly, based on our investigation, we propose directions for potential changes to the Intel MPX architecture to aid the design space exploration of future hardware extensions for memory safety.

A complete version of this work appears in the 2018 proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems.

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Oleksii Oleksenko, Dmitrii Kuvaiskii, Pramod Bhatotia, Pascal Felber, and Christof Fetzer. 2018. Intel MPX Explained: A Cross-layer Analysis of the Intel MPX System Stack Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems (POMACS).

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Cited By

Robertson WEgele M(2024)A Viewpoint: Safer Heaps With Practical Architectural Security PrimitivesIEEE Security & Privacy10.1109/MSEC.2024.340467222:4(62-65)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MSEC.2024.3404672
Schrammel DUnterguggenberger MLamster LSultana SGrewal KLeMay MDurham DMangard S(2024)Memory Tagging using Cryptographic Integrity on Commodity x86 CPUs2024 IEEE 9th European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P)10.1109/EuroSP60621.2024.00024(311-326)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSP60621.2024.00024
Xu SLiu EHuang WLie D(2023)MIFP: Selective Fat-Pointer Bounds Compression for Accurate Bounds CheckingProceedings of the 26th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses10.1145/3607199.3607212(609-622)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607199.3607212
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Index Terms

Intel MPX Explained: A Cross-layer Analysis of the Intel MPX System Stack
1. Security and privacy
  1. Software and application security
    1. Software security engineering

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGMETRICS '18: Abstracts of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

June 2018

155 pages

ISBN:9781450358460

DOI:10.1145/3219617

General Chair:
Konstantinos Psounis
University of Southern California
,
Program Chairs:
Aditya Akella
University of Wisconsin-Madison
,
Adam Wierman
California Institute of Technology

ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review Volume 46, Issue 1
SIGMETRICS '18
June 2018
142 pages
ISSN:0163-5999
DOI:10.1145/3292040
Editor:
Nidhi Hegde
Borealis AI
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2018 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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SIGMETRICS: ACM Special Interest Group on Measurement and Evaluation

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 12 June 2018

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Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

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SIGMETRICS '18

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SIGMETRICS

SIGMETRICS '18: ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

June 18 - 22, 2018

CA, Irvine, USA

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SIGMETRICS '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 54 of 270 submissions, 20%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 459 of 2,691 submissions, 17%

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Citations

Cited By

Robertson WEgele M(2024)A Viewpoint: Safer Heaps With Practical Architectural Security PrimitivesIEEE Security & Privacy10.1109/MSEC.2024.340467222:4(62-65)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MSEC.2024.3404672
Schrammel DUnterguggenberger MLamster LSultana SGrewal KLeMay MDurham DMangard S(2024)Memory Tagging using Cryptographic Integrity on Commodity x86 CPUs2024 IEEE 9th European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P)10.1109/EuroSP60621.2024.00024(311-326)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/EuroSP60621.2024.00024
Xu SLiu EHuang WLie D(2023)MIFP: Selective Fat-Pointer Bounds Compression for Accurate Bounds CheckingProceedings of the 26th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses10.1145/3607199.3607212(609-622)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607199.3607212
Brohet MRegazzoni F(2023)A Survey on Thwarting Memory Corruption in RISC-VACM Computing Surveys10.1145/360490656:2(1-29)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3604906
Kedia PPurandare RAgarwal URishabh Just RFraser G(2023)CGuard: Scalable and Precise Object Bounds Protection for CProceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis10.1145/3597926.3598137(1307-1318)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597926.3598137
Blair WRobertson WEgele M(2023)ThreadLock: Native Principal Isolation Through Memory Protection KeysProceedings of the 2023 ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3579856.3595797(966-979)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579856.3595797
Unterguggenberger MSchrammel DLamster LNasahl PMangard SMeng WJensen CCremers CKirda E(2023)Cryptographically Enforced Memory SafetyProceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3576915.3623138(889-903)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576915.3623138
Chen ZZhang QWu JYan JXue J(2023)A Source-Level Instrumentation Framework for the Dynamic Analysis of Memory SafetyIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2022.321058049:4(2107-2127)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3210580
Derasari PGogineni KVenkataramani G(2023)Mayalok: A Cyber-Deception Hardware Using Runtime Instruction Infusion2023 IEEE 34th International Conference on Application-specific Systems, Architectures and Processors (ASAP)10.1109/ASAP57973.2023.00019(33-40)Online publication date: Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ASAP57973.2023.00019
Hafkemeyer LStarink JContinella A(2023)Divak: Non-invasive Characterization of Out-of-Bounds Write VulnerabilitiesDetection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment10.1007/978-3-031-35504-2_11(211-232)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-35504-2_11
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