Trustworthy Systems

Last-level cache side-channel attacks are practical

Authors

Fangfei Liu, Yuval Yarom, Qian Ge, Gernot Heiser and Ruby B Lee

Princeton University\ NICTA\ University of Adelaide\ UNSW

Abstract

We present an effective implementation of the Prime+Probe side-channel attack against the last-level cache. We measure the capacity of the covert channel the attack creates and demonstrate a cross-core, cross-VM attack on multiple versions of GnuPG. Our technique achieves a high attack resolution without relying on weaknesses in the OS or hypervisor or on sharing memory between attacker and victim.

BibTeX Entry

  @inproceedings{Liu_YGHL_15,
    address          = {San Jose, CA, US},
    author           = {Liu, Fangfei and Yarom, Yuval and Ge, Qian and Heiser, Gernot and Lee, Ruby B},
    booktitle        = {IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy},
    keywords         = {best, security, timing channels, leakage, clouds},
    month            = may,
    pages            = {605--622},
    paperurl         = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/nicta_full_text/8432.pdf},
    publisher        = {IEEE},
    title            = {Last-Level Cache Side-Channel Attacks are Practical},
    year             = {2015}
  }

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