On the Detection of Side-Channel Attacks

Abstract

Threats posed by side-channel and covert-channel attacks exploiting the CPU cache to compromise the confidentiality of a system raise serious security concerns. This applies especially to systems offering shared hardware or resources to their customers. As eradicating this threat is practically impeded due to performance implications or financial cost of the current mitigation approaches, a detection mechanism might enhance the security of such systems. In the course of this work, we propose an approach towards side-channel attacks detection, considering the specificity of cache-based SCAs and their implementations.