Evaluating Security Requirements in a General-Purpose Processor by Combining Assertion Checkers with Code Coverage
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Authors
Bilzor, Michael
Huffmire, Ted
Irvine, Cynthia E.
Levin, Tim
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Date of Issue
2012-06
Date
June 2012
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Abstract
The problem of malicious inclusions in hardware is
an emerging threat, and detecting them is a difficult challenge.
In this research, we enhance an existing method for creating
assertion-based dynamic checkers, and demonstrate how behavioral
security requirements can be derived from a processor’s
architectural specification, then converted into security checkers
that are part of the processor’s design.
The novel contributions of this research are:
- We demonstrate the method using a set of assertions, derived
from the architectural specification, on a full-scale open-source
general-purpose processor design, called OpenRISC. Previous
work used only a single assertion on a toy processor design.
- We demonstrate the use of our checker-generator tool, called
psl2hdl, which was created for this research.
- We illustrate how the method can be used in concert with
code coverage techniques, to either detect malicious inclusions
or greatly narrow the search for malicious inclusions that use
rare-event triggers.
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Conference Paper
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Presentation
Description
Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), San Francisco, CA, June 2012, pp. 49-54.The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HST.2012.6224318
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.