SCAAT: Secure Cache Alternative Address Table for mitigating cache logical side-channel attacks

Abstract

Interest in memory systems’ security has increased during the last decade due to their vulnerabilities to be exploited by logical side channels attacks. A promising approach for attack detection at run-time is to monitor the cache memory’s behavior. However, designing an environment capable of detecting and mitigating these attacks is very challenging. In current monitoring systems, attack mitigation has been largely neglected. To overcome these shortcomings, in this work, we present a secure cache called SCAAT. SCAAT is equipped with an attack mitigation system to handle attacks by remapping where data is stored in the cache to random locations. In addition, SCAAT uses an attack monitor that identifies suspicious behavior that indicates cache logical side-channel attacks. The effectiveness of SCAAT is analyzed and evaluated for several cache configurations in terms of area overhead and performance.