A Security Model for Randomization-based Protected Caches

Jordi Ribes-González; Oriol Farràs; Carles Hernández; Vatistas Kostalabros; Miquel Moretó

Paper 2022/440

A Security Model for Randomization-based Protected Caches

Jordi Ribes-González

Oriol Farràs

Carles Hernández

Vatistas Kostalabros

Miquel Moretó

Abstract

Cache side-channel attacks allow adversaries to learn sensitive information about co-running processes by using only access latency measures and cache contention. This vulnerability has been shown to lead to several microarchitectural attacks. As a promising solution, recent work proposes Randomization-based Protected Caches (RPCs). RPCs randomize cache addresses, changing keys periodically so as to avoid long-term leakage. Unfortunately, recent attacks have called the security of state-of-the-art RPCs into question. In this work, we tackle the problem of formally defining and analyzing the security properties of RPCs. We first give security definitions against access-based cache side-channel attacks that capture security against known attacks such as Prime+Probe and Evict+Probe. Then, using these definitions, we obtain results that allow to guarantee security by adequately choosing the rekeying period, the key generation algorithm and the cache randomizer, thus providing security proofs for RPCs under certain assumptions.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Applications
Publication info: A major revision of an IACR publication in TCHES 2022
DOI: 10.46586/tches.v2022.i3.1-25
Keywords: Cache side-channel attacks Timing attacks Randomization-based protected caches Randomly-mapped caches Pseudo-random functions Security definition
Contact author(s): jordi ribes @ urv cat
oriol farras @ urv cat
carherlu @ upv es
vatistas kostalabros @ bsc es
miquel moreto @ bsc es
History: 2022-09-16: revised; 2022-04-12: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2022/440
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2022/440,
      author = {Jordi Ribes-González and Oriol Farràs and Carles Hernández and Vatistas Kostalabros and Miquel Moretó},
      title = {A Security Model for Randomization-based Protected Caches},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2022/440},
      year = {2022},
      doi = {10.46586/tches.v2022.i3.1-25},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/440}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/440}
}