Compiler Optimizations to Reduce Security Overhead

In this work, we present several compiler optimizations to reduce the overhead due to software protection. We first propose an aggressive rematerialization algorithm which attempts to maximally realize non-trusted values from other trusted values thereby avoiding the security cost for those non-trusted values. We further propose a compiler technique to utilize the secure storage in our machine model efficiently. To optimize the security cost on data that has to be stored in non-trusted storage, we propose a data grouping technique. Security operations can be performed over the group of data instead of over each piece separately. We show an interesting application of the data grouping technique to reduce the security cost. We test the effectiveness of our optimizations on a recently proposed software protection scheme that involves large overhead. Our results show that the above optimizations are effective and reduce the security overhead significantly.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CGO
• Authors: Tao Zhang, Xiaotong Zhuang, Santosh Pande
• Keywords: CGO 2006, Data Grouping Technique, Non-trusted Values, Security Cost, Software Engineering