Side-channel security of superscalar CPUs: Evaluating the Impact of Micro-architectural Features

Abstract

Side-channel attacks are performed on increasingly complex targets, starting to threaten superscalar CPUs supporting a complete operating system. The difficulty of both assessing the vulnerability of a device to them, and validating the effectiveness of countermeasures is increasing as a consequence. In this work we prove that assessing the side-channel vulnerability of a software implementation running on a CPU should take into account the microarchitectural features of the CPU itself. We characterize the impact of microarchitectural features and prove the effectiveness of such an approach attacking a dual-core superscalar CPU.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/dac.2018.8465784

• http://hdl.handle.net/11311/1066452

• https://re.public.polimi.it/bitstream/11311/1066452/4/mainDAC18.pdf

• http://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3196112&ftid=1980932&dwn=1,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3195970.3196112 under the license http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright_policy#Background

• http://xplorestaging.ieee.org/ielx7/8430031/8465567/08465784.pdf?arnumber=8465784,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/dac.2018.8465784

• https://dblp.uni-trier.de/db/conf/dac/dac2018.html#BarenghiP18,

https://re.public.polimi.it/handle/11311/1066452,

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8465784,

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3196112,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2808967308

DOIS: 10.1145/3195970.3196112 10.1109/dac.2018.8465784