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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2012-06
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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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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.
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