TY - JOUR
T1 - Hardware-based cyber threats
T2 - attack vectors and defence techniques
AU - Montasari, Reza
AU - Hill, Richard
AU - Parkinson, Simon
AU - Daneshkhah, Alireza
AU - Hosseinian-Far, Amin
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - There are certain vulnerabilities associated with computing hardware that attackers can exploit to launch destructive attacks which often go undetected by the existing hardware and software countermeasures. Side channel attacks (SCAs) and Rowhammer attacks (RHAs), the consequences of hardware vulnerabilities, pose significant security and privacy threats to self-contained computing components and their end-users respectively. Such attacks compromise the security of computational environments, even those with advanced protection mechanisms such as virtualisation, sandboxes or robust encryptions. In light of these security threats against modern computing hardware, we perform an analysis overview of the modi operandi of SCAs and RHAs in hardware implementation and techniques that can be used to extract sensitive data such as secret keys. We then propose various countermeasures to safeguard against these attacks.
AB - There are certain vulnerabilities associated with computing hardware that attackers can exploit to launch destructive attacks which often go undetected by the existing hardware and software countermeasures. Side channel attacks (SCAs) and Rowhammer attacks (RHAs), the consequences of hardware vulnerabilities, pose significant security and privacy threats to self-contained computing components and their end-users respectively. Such attacks compromise the security of computational environments, even those with advanced protection mechanisms such as virtualisation, sandboxes or robust encryptions. In light of these security threats against modern computing hardware, we perform an analysis overview of the modi operandi of SCAs and RHAs in hardware implementation and techniques that can be used to extract sensitive data such as secret keys. We then propose various countermeasures to safeguard against these attacks.
KW - Side channels
KW - Microarchitectural attacks
KW - Cyber threats
KW - Hardware attacks
KW - Embedded systems
KW - Digital investigations
KW - Countermeasures
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094884729&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1504/IJESDF.2020.110675
DO - 10.1504/IJESDF.2020.110675
M3 - Article
VL - 12
SP - 397
EP - 411
JO - International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics
JF - International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics
SN - 1751-911X
IS - 4
ER -