Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation

Abstract Spectre class of transient execution security attacks on modern microprocessors rely on speculative execution. Software Controlled Speculation (SCS) was proposed as a microarchitecture‐level defense in the original Spectre paper and has also been adopted by ARM. The idea with SCS is to allo...

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Main Authors: Nimish Mathure, Sudarshan K. Srinivasan, Kushal K. Ponugoti
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-12-01
Series:Electronics Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1049/ell2.70108
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author Nimish Mathure
Sudarshan K. Srinivasan
Kushal K. Ponugoti
author_facet Nimish Mathure
Sudarshan K. Srinivasan
Kushal K. Ponugoti
author_sort Nimish Mathure
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Spectre class of transient execution security attacks on modern microprocessors rely on speculative execution. Software Controlled Speculation (SCS) was proposed as a microarchitecture‐level defense in the original Spectre paper and has also been adopted by ARM. The idea with SCS is to allow a mode in the microarchitecture, where instructions that read from memory are not allowed to execute speculatively. Errors or malicious fault‐injections in the implementation of SCS can still render the microarchitecture vulnerable to Spectre attacks. A formal verification method is proposed that can check the correctness of the implementation of SCS and detect any faults. The method has been demonstrated to be very efficient on two sets of benchmarks and provides accurate detection of implementation faults in SCS.
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series Electronics Letters
spelling doaj-art-e1ced21e17084b2e9a54a0570e5ed1c32024-12-16T06:52:28ZengWileyElectronics Letters0013-51941350-911X2024-12-016023n/an/a10.1049/ell2.70108Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculationNimish Mathure0Sudarshan K. Srinivasan1Kushal K. Ponugoti2Electrical and Computer Engineering North Dakota State University Fargo North Dakota USAElectrical and Computer Engineering North Dakota State University Fargo North Dakota USAElectrical and Computer Engineering North Dakota State University Fargo North Dakota USAAbstract Spectre class of transient execution security attacks on modern microprocessors rely on speculative execution. Software Controlled Speculation (SCS) was proposed as a microarchitecture‐level defense in the original Spectre paper and has also been adopted by ARM. The idea with SCS is to allow a mode in the microarchitecture, where instructions that read from memory are not allowed to execute speculatively. Errors or malicious fault‐injections in the implementation of SCS can still render the microarchitecture vulnerable to Spectre attacks. A formal verification method is proposed that can check the correctness of the implementation of SCS and detect any faults. The method has been demonstrated to be very efficient on two sets of benchmarks and provides accurate detection of implementation faults in SCS.https://doi.org/10.1049/ell2.70108formal verificationsecurity of data
spellingShingle Nimish Mathure
Sudarshan K. Srinivasan
Kushal K. Ponugoti
Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
Electronics Letters
formal verification
security of data
title Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
title_full Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
title_fullStr Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
title_full_unstemmed Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
title_short Invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
title_sort invulnerability invariants for software controlled speculation
topic formal verification
security of data
url https://doi.org/10.1049/ell2.70108
work_keys_str_mv AT nimishmathure invulnerabilityinvariantsforsoftwarecontrolledspeculation
AT sudarshanksrinivasan invulnerabilityinvariantsforsoftwarecontrolledspeculation
AT kushalkponugoti invulnerabilityinvariantsforsoftwarecontrolledspeculation