NSF workshop on side and covert channels in computing systems

向恶意对手泄露信息是影响计算机用户的一个快速增长的问题。在各种形式的信息泄露中，侧面渠道和隐蔽渠道尤为引人注目。侧通道是信息泄漏通道，在该通道中，攻击者静默地观察受害者进程的活动以推断其秘密。隐蔽通道甚至更加危险，因为恶意的内部木马进程故意与攻击者勾结以泄露机密。这种信息泄露通道可以利用当前多核硬件中丰富的共享硬件资源，导致敏感用户信息泄露。深入了解这些信息泄露渠道对计算机系统安全的影响及其后果，对我国的网络安全大有裨益。该项目组织了一个研讨会，聚集了在研究侧面和隐蔽通道方面花费了大量精力和时间的主要研究人员和专家，以及在计算机系统及其安全需求方面具有丰富经验的安全研究人员。研讨会狭隘地关注硬件侧和隐蔽通道，以便创建一个独特的论坛，以集中的方式研究跨学科挑战，即计算中的侧通道和隐蔽通道泄漏的威胁，不同社区的参与：计算机架构师，硬件设计师和密码学家。讲习班参与者确定了现有计算机设计方法和策略的潜在改进，以尽量减少和潜在地消除信息泄漏。然后，一份全面的研讨会报告总结了关于检测、减轻和防御侧面和隐蔽通道方面的最新技术和投影的发现和讨论。

Information leakage to malicious adversaries is a fast growing concern affecting computer users. Among the various forms of information leakage, side- and covert channels have particularly gained notorious attention. Side channels are information leakage channels where an adversary silently observes the activities of a victim process to infer its secrets. Covert channels are even more dangerous because a malicious insider trojan process intentionally colludes with the attacker to exfiltrate secrets. Such information leakage channels can exploit the abundance of shared hardware resources in current multi-core hardware, and result in compromising sensitive user information. A thorough understanding of the impact of such information leakage channels on computer system security and their consequences can immensely benefit our national cyber-security. This project organizes a workshop to gather leading researchers and experts who have spent considerable effort and time in studying side and covert channels, as well as security researchers with strong experience in computer systems and their security needs. The workshop narrowly focuses on hardware side and covert channels, in order to create a unique forum for studying a cross-disciplinary challenge in a focused manner, namely the threat of side-channel and covert-channel leakage in computing, with the participation of different communities: computer architects, hardware designers, and cryptographers. The workshop participants identify potential improvements to existing computer design methodologies and strategies to minimizing and potentially neutralizing information leakage. A comprehensive workshop report then summarizes the findings and discussion on the current state of the art and projection in terms of detecting, mitigating and defending against side- and covert channels.