AutoCC: Automatic Discovery of Covert Channels in Time-Shared Hardware
Marcelo Orenes-Vera, Hyunsung Yun, Nils Wistoff, Gernot Heiser, Luca Benini, David Wentzlaff, Margaret Martonosi · 2023
Covert channels enable information leakage between security domains that should be isolated by observing execution differences in shared hardware. These channels can appear in any stateful shared resource, including caches, predictors, and accelerators. Previous works have identified many vulnerable components, demonstrating and defending against attacks via reverse engineering. However, this approach requires much human effort and reasoning. With the Cambrian explosion of specialized hardware, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify all vulnerabilities manually.