A Data-Driven Approach Using Hardware Performance Counters to Detect Micro-Architectural Attacks
Jaya Keshava Chandra Kotha, Jean‐Luc Gaudiot · 2025
Modern processors remain vulnerable to microarchitectural attacks like Spectre, which exploit speculative execution to leak sensitive data. Traditional detection methods struggle with evolving threats, while hardware redesigns are impractical for legacy systems. This paper presents a hardware performance counter (HPC)-based method that achieves 99% detection accuracy in identifying Spectre attack patterns. Compared to existing approaches, our method remains robust against noise and background variations, ensuring high detection accuracy across system loads without necessitating hardware modifications.