CRII: SaTC: Mitigating Software-Based Microarchitectural Attacks via Secure Microcode Customization

现代高性能处理器实现了复杂的微体系结构优化，涉及投机性执行，最近被证明容易受到一种名为Spectre的恶意攻击。该项目将研究微体系结构解决方案框架，以确保免受此类攻击。这项研究将研究一种具有三个新组件的高性能防御策略：(A)安全微码定制，其利用处理器的微代码引擎来使得能够在不需要软件修补的情况下将Spectre防御代码(例如，推测栅栏)外科手术注入到动态指令流中；(B)解码级信息流跟踪框架，其检测导致诸如分支预测器等核心微处理器结构的误训练的虚假执行模式，以及(C)微体系结构加固机制，保护敏感的微体系结构免受推测执行的恶意副作用，从而进一步实现安全感知的处理器体系结构设计。本研究提出的可重构微码级防御可以应对影响数百万用户的Spectre攻击。该项目将培训和指导研究生和本科生，预计将促进硬件安全课程的开发，并在课堂上和在线上提供。这项研究的结果将以出版物、演示文稿、设计报告、课程材料和源代码的形式传播，并将在整个项目期间和以后公开托管在研究人员的网站上，http://www.cs.virginia.edu/venkat.This奖反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Modern high-performance processors implement complex microarchitectural optimizations involving speculative execution which has recently been shown to be vulnerable to a type of malicious attack called Spectre. This project will investigate a microarchitectural solution framework to secure against such attacks. This framework, called context-sensitive fencing, will seek to automatically track and detect malicious execution patterns dynamically to trigger defense code without programmer intervention and with minimal impact on processor performance.This research will investigate a high performance defense strategy with three novel components: (a) secure microcode customization which leverages the processor's microcode engine to enable the surgical injection of Spectre defense code (e.g., speculation fences) into the dynamic instruction stream without the need for software patching, (b) a decoder-level information flow tracking framework which detects spurious execution patterns that result in the mis-training of core microprocessor structures such as the branch predictor, and (c) microarchitecture hardening mechanisms that shield sensitive microarchitectural structures against the malicious side effects of speculative execution, to further enable a security-aware processor architecture design.The reconfigurable microcode-level defense proposed by this research may address the Spectre attack which affects millions of users. This project will train and mentor graduate and undergraduate students and is expected to facilitate development of a hardware security course to be delivered in-class and online.The results from this research will be disseminated in the form of publications, presentations, design reports, course materials, and source code, and will be hosted publicly for the length of this project and beyond, on the investigator's website at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/venkat.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.