A Survey of Microarchitectural Timing Attacks and Countermeasures on Contemporary Hardware

Qian Ge; Yuval Yarom; David Cock; Gernot Heiser

Paper 2016/613

A Survey of Microarchitectural Timing Attacks and Countermeasures on Contemporary Hardware

Qian Ge, Yuval Yarom, David Cock, and Gernot Heiser

Abstract

Microarchitectural timing channels expose hidden hardware states though timing. We survey recent attacks that exploit microarchitectural features in shared hardware, especially as they are relevant for cloud computing. We classify types of attacks according to a taxonomy of the shared resources leveraged for such attacks. Moreover, we take a detailed look at attacks used against shared caches. We survey existing countermeasures. We finally discuss trends in attacks, challenges to combating them, and future directions, especially with respect to hardware support.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Publication info: Published elsewhere. Journal of Cryptographic Engineering
DOI: 10.1007/s13389-016-0141-6
Keywords: Microarchitectural timing attacks Cache-based timing attacks Countermeasures Trend in the attacks
Contact author(s): qian ge @ data61 csiro au
History: 2016-10-24: last of 2 revisions; 2016-06-16: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2016/613
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2016/613,
      author = {Qian Ge and Yuval Yarom and David Cock and Gernot Heiser},
      title = {A Survey of Microarchitectural Timing Attacks and Countermeasures on Contemporary Hardware},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2016/613},
      year = {2016},
      doi = {10.1007/s13389-016-0141-6},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/613}
}