What is a cache side-channel attack?

What is a cache side-channel attack?

A cache side-channel attack works by monitoring security critical operations such as AES T-table entry or modular exponentiation or multiplication or memory accesses. A timing attack watches data movement into and out of the CPU or memory on the hardware running the cryptosystem or algorithm.

How secure is your cache against side channel attacks?

No matter what plaintext is encrypted, as long as the secret keys are leaked, the encrypted data can be easily recovered by attackers because encryption/decryption algorithms are publicly known. Cache based side-channel attacks exploit the difference in the access times of cache hits and misses.

What is prime and probe?

THE NEW PRIME AND PROBE ATTACK. As explained in the background section, the Prime and Probe attacks measure the time needed to read data from memory pages associated with individual cache sets. Thus, it primes a number of cache sets with data and waits till the data is accessed by another virtual machine.

How does side-channel attack work?

A side channel attack breaks cryptography by using information leaked by cryptography, such as monitoring the electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation emitted by a computer screen to view information before it’s encrypted in a van Eck phreaking attack, aka Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation STandard (TEMPEST).

What are the types of side channel attacks?

Types of side-channel attacks

• Electromagnetic. An attacker measures the electromagnetic radiation, or radio waves, given off by a target device to reconstruct the internal signals of that device.
• Acoustic. The attacker measures the sounds produced by a device.
• Power.
• Optical.
• Timing.
• Memory cache.
• Hardware weaknesses.

What is timing attack in cryptography?

A timing attack is a security exploit that allows an attacker to discover vulnerabilities in the security of a computer or network system by studying how long it takes the system to respond to different inputs. The canonical example of a timing attack was designed by cryptographer Paul Kocher.

Which attacks uses side channel analysis to obtain the secret key?

SC attacks are the physical attacks that use the physical process to extract the secret information of the cryptographic algorithms such as encryption key.

What is the purpose of side-channel attack?

A side-channel attack is a security exploit that aims to gather information from or influence the program execution of a system by measuring or exploiting indirect effects of the system or its hardware — rather than targeting the program or its code directly.

What are the four types of side channel attacks?

Are Side Channel Attacks passive or active?

Both of these examples are passive side channels. Another option for side channel attacks is an active side channel exploit. An example from crypto history would be to try to get the enemy to encrypt a known message with their system. Generally, passive attacks are attacks that only observe the side-channel output.

How are priming and probe phases of a cache attack?

Priming phase: The attacker occupies all cache sets with attacker data. Probe phase: The attacker measures access time to figure out which set of data was accessed by the victim. But the set is only part of the address. How can an attacker still deduce which address exactly was accessed?

Why are cache side channels important to the CPU?

● Cache side channel attacks are attacks enabled by the micro architecturual design of the CPU. ● Probably most important side channel because of bandwith, size and central position in computer. ● Because these side channels are part of hardware design they are notoriously difficult to defeat.

Why are CPU caches targeted by adversaries?

CPU caches are one of the most hardware devices targeted by adversaries because it has high-rate interactions and sharing between processes. This paper presents a new Prime and Probe cache side-channel attack, which can prime physical addresses. These addresses are translated form virtual addresses used by a virtual machine.

How does an attacker fill up a cache?

Attacker fills up the cache with arbitrary data. The actual values don’t matter, so long as the cache is full of data that isn’t what’s accessed by the algorithm. Some portion (or all) of the algorithm runs. Based on how long it took and their knowledge of the relevant algorithm, the attacker can estimate what cache lines were loaded.