Related papers: Write Me and I'll Tell You Secrets -- Write-After-…
Modern x86 processors have many prefetch instructions that can be used by programmers to boost performance. However, these instructions may also cause security problems. In particular, we found that on Intel processors, there are two…
The transient execution attack is a type of attack leveraging the vulnerability of modern CPU optimization technologies. New attacks surface rapidly. The side-channel is a key part of transient execution attacks to leak data. In this work,…
We introduce a new timing side-channel attack on Intel CPU processors. Our Frontal attack exploits timing differences that arise from how the CPU frontend fetches and processes instructions while being interrupted. In particular, we observe…
Caches have been used to construct various types of covert and side channels to leak information. Most existing cache channels exploit the timing difference between cache hits and cache misses. However, we introduce a new and broader…
Modern processor designs use a variety of microarchitectural methods to achieve high performance. Unfortunately, new side-channels have often been uncovered that exploit these enhanced designs. One area that has received little attention…
In heterogeneous SoCs, accelerators like integrated GPUs (iGPUs) are integrated on the same chip as CPUs, sharing the memory subsystem. In such systems, the massive memory requests from throughput-oriented accelerators significantly…
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…
Research on cache attacks has shown that CPU caches leak significant information. Proposed detection mechanisms assume that all cache attacks cause more cache hits and cache misses than benign applications and use hardware performance…
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…
Transient execution attacks utilize micro-architectural covert channels to leak secrets that should not have been accessible during logical program execution. Commonly used micro-architectural covert channels are those that leave lasting…
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…
Side-channel attacks have become prominent attack surfaces in cyberspace. Attackers use the side information generated by the system while performing a task. Among the various side-channel attacks, cache side-channel attacks are leading as…
Modern computer processors use microarchitectural optimization mechanisms to improve performance. As a downside, such optimizations are prone to introducing side-channel vulnerabilities. Speculative loading of memory, called prefetching, is…
The transient-execution attack Meltdown leaks sensitive information by transiently accessing inaccessible data during out-of-order execution. Although Meltdown is fixed in hardware for recent CPU generations, most currently-deployed CPUs…
In this paper, we reveal the existence of a new class of prefetcher, the XPT prefetcher, in the modern Intel processors which has never been officially documented. It speculatively issues a load, bypassing last-level cache (LLC) lookups,…
The Least-Recently Used cache replacement policy and its variants are widely deployed in modern processors. This paper shows for the first time in detail that the LRU states of caches can be used to leak information: any access to a cache…
Covert channel attacks represent a significant threat to system security, leveraging shared resources to clandestinely transmit information from highly secure systems, thereby violating the system's security policies. These attacks exploit…
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…
Scientists have built a variety of covert channels for secretive information transmission with CPU cache and main memory. In this paper, we turn to a lower level in the memory hierarchy, i.e., persistent storage. Most programs store…
Caches have become the prime method for unintended information extraction across logical isolation boundaries. Even Spectre and Meltdown rely on the cache side channel, as it provides great resolution and is widely available on all major…