Related papers: Speculative Leakage in ARM Cortex-A53
Modern processors use branch prediction and speculative execution to maximize performance. For example, if the destination of a branch depends on a memory value that is in the process of being read, CPUs will try guess the destination and…
The recent Spectre attacks has demonstrated the fundamental insecurity of current computer microarchitecture. The attacks use features like pipelining, out-of-order and speculation to extract arbitrary information about the memory contents…
Attacks like Spectre abuse speculative execution, one of the key performance optimizations of modern CPUs. Recently, several testing tools have emerged to automatically detect speculative leaks in commercial (black-box) CPUs. However, the…
The recent discovery of the Spectre and Meltdown attacks represents a watershed moment not just for the field of Computer Security, but also of Programming Languages. This paper explores speculative side-channel attacks and their…
Speculative execution which is used pervasively in modern CPUs can leave side effects in the processor caches and other structures even when the speculated instructions do not commit and their direct effect is not visible. The recent…
Recently discovered Spectre and meltdown attacks affects almost all processors by leaking confidential information to other processes through side-channel attacks. These vulnerabilities expose design flaws in the architecture of modern…
This paper argues and shows that speculative vectorization, where a loop with rare or unknown memory dependencies are still vectorized, is fundamentally vulnerable and cannot be mitigated by existing defenses. We implement a simple proof of…
Spectre intrusions exploit speculative execution design vulnerabilities in modern processors. The attacks violate the principles of isolation in programs to gain unauthorized private user information. Current state-of-the-art detection…
Practical attacks that exploit speculative execution can leak confidential information via microarchitectural side channels. The recently-demonstrated Spectre attacks leverage speculative loads which circumvent access checks to read…
Meltdown and Spectre exploit microarchitectural changes the CPU makes during transient out-of-order execution. Using side-channel techniques, these attacks enable leaking arbitrary data from memory. As state-of-the-art software mitigations…
Recent work has shown that out-of-order and speculative execution mechanisms used to increase performance in the majority of processors expose the processors to critical attacks. These attacks, called Meltdown and Spectre, exploit the side…
Spectre attacks disclosed in early 2018 expose data leakage scenarios via cache side channels. Specifically, speculatively executed paths due to branch mis-prediction may bring secret data into the cache which are then exposed via cache…
Spectre, Meltdown, and related attacks have demonstrated that kernels, hypervisors, trusted execution environments, and browsers are prone to information disclosure through micro-architectural weaknesses. However, it remains unclear as to…
Microarchitectural attacks represent a challenging and persistent threat to modern processors, exploiting inherent design vulnerabilities in processors to leak sensitive information or compromise systems. Of particular concern is the…
Spectre v1 attacks, which exploit conditional branch misprediction, are often identified with attacks that bypass array bounds checking to leak data from a victim's memory. Generally, however, Spectre v1 attacks can exploit any conditional…
Reasoning about correctness and security of software is increasingly difficult due to the complexity of modern microarchitectural features such as out-of-order execution. A class of security vulnerabilities termed Spectre that exploits side…
CPU cache is a limited but crucial storage component in modern processors, whereas the cache timing side-channel may inadvertently leak information through the physically measurable timing variance. Speculative execution, an essential…
Speculative execution enhances processor performance by predicting intermediate results and executing instructions based on these predictions. However, incorrect predictions can lead to security vulnerabilities, as speculative instructions…
Modern processors are highly optimized systems where every single cycle of computation time matters. Many optimizations depend on the data that is being processed. Software-based microarchitectural attacks exploit effects of these…
Speculative execution attacks leverage the speculative and out-of-order execution features in modern computer processors to access secret data or execute code that should not be executed. Secret information can then be leaked through a…