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We propose a method, based on program analysis and transformation, for eliminating timing side channels in software code that implements security-critical applications. Our method takes as input the original program together with a list of…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2018-07-24 Meng Wu , Shengjian Guo , Patrick Schaumont , Chao Wang

Compiler optimizations are designed to improve run-time performance while preserving input-output behavior. Correctness in this sense does not necessarily preserve security: it is known that standard optimizations may break or weaken…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2019-11-15 Kedar S. Namjoshi , Lucas M. Tabajara

LLM-based code assistants are becoming increasingly popular among developers. These tools help developers improve their coding efficiency and reduce errors by providing real-time suggestions based on the developer's codebase. While…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Amit Finkman Noah , Avishag Shapira , Eden Bar Kochva , Inbar Maimon , Dudu Mimran , Yuval Elovici , Asaf Shabtai

Engineers build large software systems for multiple architectures, operating systems, and configurations. A set of inconsistent or missing compiler flags generates code that catastrophically impacts the system's behavior. In the authors'…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-01-09 Gunnar Kudrjavets , Aditya Kumar , Jeff Thomas , Ayushi Rastogi

Compiler optimization relies on sequences of passes to improve program performance. Selecting and ordering these passes automatically, known as compiler auto-tuning, is challenging due to the large and complex search space. Existing…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Haolin Pan , Jinyuan Dong , Mingjie Xing , Yanjun Wu

Because loops execute their body many times, compiler developers place much emphasis on their optimization. Nevertheless, in view of highly diverse source code and hardware, compilers still struggle to produce optimal target code. The sheer…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2021-03-01 Rahim Mammadli , Marija Selakovic , Felix Wolf , Michael Pradel

Timing side-channel attacks exploit variations in program execution time to recover sensitive information. Cryptographic implementations are especially vulnerable to these attacks, since even small timing differences in operations such as…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Nges Brian Njungle , Edwin P. Kayang , Mishel J. Paul , Michel A. Kinsy

In the era of microarchitectural side channels, vendors scramble to deploy mitigations for transient execution attacks, but leave traditional side-channel attacks against sensitive software (e.g., crypto programs) to be fixed by developers…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2021-09-16 Pietro Borrello , Daniele Cono D'Elia , Leonardo Querzoni , Cristiano Giuffrida

In software development environments, code quality is crucial. This study aims to assist Machine Learning (ML) engineers in enhancing their code by identifying and correcting Data Leakage issues within their models. Data Leakage occurs when…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-09-22 Owen Truong , Terrence Zhang , Arnav Marchareddy , Ryan Lee , Jeffery Busold , Michael Socas , Eman Abdullah AlOmar

The PQDSS standardization process requires cryptographic primitives to be free from vulnerabilities, including timing and cache side-channels. Resistance to timing leakage is therefore an essential property, and achieving this typically…

Programmers have long ignored warnings, especially those generated by static analysis tools, due to the potential for false-positives. In some cases, warnings may be indicative of larger issues, but programmers may not understand how a…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Hansen Chang , Christian DeLozier

Detection and quantification of information leaks through timing side channels are important to guarantee confidentiality. Although static analysis remains the prevalent approach for detecting timing side channels, it is computationally…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-07-25 Saeid Tizpaz-Niari , Pavol Cerny , Sriram Sankaranarayanan , Ashutosh Trivedi

How will future microarchitectures impact the security of existing cryptographic implementations? As we cannot keep reducing the size of transistors, chip vendors have started developing new microarchitectural optimizations to speed up…

Existing iterative compilation and machine-learning-based optimization techniques have been proven very successful in achieving better optimizations than the standard optimization levels of a compiler. However, they were not engineered to…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-08-11 Kyriakos Georgiou , Zbigniew Chamski , Andres Amaya Garcia , David May , Kerstin Eder

To be secure, cryptographic algorithms crucially rely on the underlying hardware to avoid inadvertent leakage of secrets through timing side channels. Unfortunately, such timing channels are ubiquitous in modern hardware, due to its…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-10-09 Klaus v. Gleissenthall , Rami Gökhan Kıcı , Deian Stefan , Ranjit Jhala

Timing side-channel attacks exploit secret-dependent execution time to fully or partially recover secrets of cryptographic implementations, posing a severe threat to software security. Constant-time programming discipline is an effective…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-02-22 Luwei Cai , Fu Song , Taolue Chen

New information technologies provide a lot of prospects for performance improvement. One of them is "Dynamic Source Code Generation and Compilation". This article shows how this way provides high performance for engineering problems.

Performance · Computer Science 2008-08-25 Petr R. Ivankov

Although cryptographic algorithms may be mathematically secure, it is often possible to leak secret information from the implementation of the algorithms. Timing and power side-channel vulnerabilities are some of the most widely considered…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Ferhat Erata , Ruzica Piskac , Victor Mateu , Jakub Szefer

Modern AI agents optimize programs by refactoring source code to trigger trusted compiler transformations. This preserves program semantics and reduces source code pollution, making the program easier to maintain and portable across…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2026-04-16 Akash Deo , Simone Campanoni , Tommy McMichen

Speculative execution attacks undermine the security of constant-time programming, the standard technique used to prevent microarchitectural side channels in security-sensitive software such as cryptographic code. Constant-time code must…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Rutvik Choudhary , Alan Wang , Zirui Neil Zhao , Adam Morrison , Christopher W. Fletcher