Operating System Controlled Processor-Memory Bus Encryption

—Unencrypted data appearing on the processor– memory bus can result in security violations, e.g., allowing attackers to gather keys to financial accounts and personal data. Although on-chip bus encryption hardware can solve this problem, it requires hardware redesign or increases processor cost. Application redesign to prevent sensitive data from appearing on the processor–memory bus is extremely difficult. We propose and evaluate a processor–memory bus encryption technique for embedded systems that requires no changes to applications or hardware. This technique exploits cache locking or scratchpad memory, features present in many embedded processors, permitting the operating system (OS) virtual memory infrastructure to automatically encrypt data belonging to protected processes as they are written to off-chip memory. Pages belonging to unprotected processes are stored unencrypted to prevent performance and energy consumption penalties. We evaluate the proposed bus encryption...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: DATE
• Authors: Xi Chen, Robert P. Dick, Alok N. Choudhary
• Keywords: Bus Encryption, Bus Encryption Technique, DATE 2008, Hardware, Processor–memory Bus