CAREER: Understanding and Ensuring Secure-by-design Microarchitecture in Modern Era of Computing

微体系结构攻击(即侧通道和隐蔽通道)揭开了计算机系统安全的新篇章。这些攻击通过利用微体系结构事件的计时观察来表现出来，导致孤立实体之间的非法通信或私人数据的泄露。由于产业界和学术界对新的微体系结构创新的快速融合，人们普遍认为微体系结构的攻击面将不断扩大。因此，除了人工检查之外，对微体系结构安全进行全面且可扩展的评估势在必行。该项目研究给定微体系结构设计的系统和自动泄漏推理技术，以识别新的易受攻击的微体系结构状态，并发现新的利用机制。然后，该项目探索了原则性的缓解和预防技术，以阻止微体系结构信息泄漏。该项目包括以下补充研究工作：(1)使用微体系结构级别的抽象构建模型，并构建基于模型检查的框架，以显式地解释微体系结构泄漏分析的计时；(2)开发方法，将微体系结构易受攻击的抽象模式实例化到ISA级执行，验证和量化商业现成硬件和未来系统的新型微体系结构机制中的新泄漏攻击矢量；(3)根据底层硬件的性能特征，通过采用缓解技术，探索无泄漏和可组合的低开销安全微体系结构方案。从该项目开发的概念验证攻击/防御构件和分析工具可以帮助计算机架构师和系统设计人员评估和限制微体系结构信息泄漏。该项目还通过教育和研究培训工作的协同作用，为本科生和代表性不足的群体提供了从事计算机体系结构和安全领域的广泛机会。该项目的成功成果可以提供对微体系结构安全的整体理解，并有助于在现代和未来计算中开发按设计安全的体系结构。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Microarchitectural attacks (i.e., side and covert channels) have opened a new chapter in computer system security. These attacks manifest by exploiting timing observations from microarchitectural events, leading to either illicit communications among isolated entities or exfiltration of private data. Due to the rapid integration of new microarchitecture innovations by both industry and academia, it is widely believed that the microarchitectural attack surface will continuously expand. Therefore, a comprehensive and scalable evaluation of microarchitecture security beyond manual inspection is imperative. This project investigates systematic and automated leakage reasoning techniques on given microarchitecture designs to identify new vulnerable microarchitectural states and discover novel exploitation mechanisms. The project then explores principled mitigation and prevention techniques to thwart microarchitectural information leakage. This project includes the following complementary research efforts: (1) Building models using microarchitecture-level abstraction and constructing model checking-based frameworks that reason timing explicitly for microarchitectural leakage analysis; (2) Developing ways to instantiate microarchitectural vulnerable abstract patterns to ISA-level executions, validate and quantify new leakage attack vectors in both commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and novel microarchitectural mechanisms for future systems; (3) Exploring leakage-free and composable secure microarchitecture schemes with low overhead by employing mitigation techniques according to performance characteristics of the underlying hardware. The proof-of-concept attack/defense artifacts and analysis tools developed from this project could benefit computer architects and system designers in assessing and limiting microarchitectural information leakage. This project also offers extensive opportunities for undergraduate students and under-represented groups to engage in the field of computer architecture and security through a synergy of education and research training efforts. Successful outcomes of this project can provide holistic understandings of microarchitecture security and contribute to the development of secure-by-design architectures in modern and future computing.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.