Hardscope

Reference 1

Non-control data attacks: DOP.

Lexical scope for every variable in C/C++: Statically checked at compile time but can be violated at runtime, leveraged by DOP.

Solution:

Run-time Scope Enforcement (RSE):

  • fine-grained compartmentalization of data memory within programs.
  • hardware assisted RSE scheme:
    • a set of six new instructions;
    • compiler instrumentation;
    • creating runtime rules defining which code blocks can access which pieces of memory.
    • rules as a stack; check on every load/store; check simultaneously with ???.
  1. HardScope: Thwarting DOP attacks with Hardware-assisted Run-time Scope Enforcement. arXiv, 2018 v2. ↩
Created Oct 12, 2019 // Last Updated Dec 19, 2020

If you could revise
the fundmental principles of
computer system design
to improve security...

... what would you change?