Performance study of a compiler/hardware approach to embedded systems security
Kripashankar Mohan, Bhagirath Narahari, Rahul Simha, Paul Ott, Alok Choudhary, Joseph Zambreno · 2005
Abstract. Trusted software execution, prevention of code and data tampering, authentication, and providing a secure environment for software are some of the most important security challenges in the design of embedded systems. This short paper evaluates the performance of a hardware/software co-design methodology for embedded software protection. Secure software is created using a secure compiler that inserts hidden codes into the executable code which are then validated dynamically during execution by a reconfigurable hardware component constructed from Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. While the overall approach has been described in other papers, this paper focuses on security-performance tradeoffs and the effect of using compiler optimizations in such an approach. Our results show that the approach provides software protection with modest performance penalty and hardware overhead. 1