On the capacity of thermal covert channels in multicores
Davide B. Bartolini, Philipp Miedl, Lothar Thiele · 2016
Modern multicore processors feature easily accessible temperature sensors that provide useful information for dynamic thermal management. These sensors were recently shown to be a potential security threat, since otherwise isolated applications can exploit them to establish a thermal covert channel and leak restricted information. Previous research showed experiments that document the feasibility of (low-rate) communication over this channel, but did not further analyze its fundamental characteristics. For this reason, the important questions of quantifying the channel capacity and achievable rates remain unanswered.