W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] Design Strategies for Efficient and Secure Memory
Speaker:
Tamara Silbergleit Lehman (Duke University)
Abstract:
Distributed systems introduce a new set of security risks. When users compute on remote machines they become vulnerable to physical attacks. To protect against physical attacks, systems use secure memory, which provides confidentiality and integrity protection for data in memory. However, systems that run with secure memory, such as Intel SGX, suffer from significant delay and energy overheads. Our goal is to design an efficient approach to secure memory while maintaining the same security guarantees. To reduce delay overheads, we propose PoisonIvy, a safe speculation mechanism that hides the integrity verification latency while maintaining the security guarantees. To reduce energy overheads, we analyze the efficiency of a simple metadata cache and propose MCX, an improved cache design that increases the efficiency of the metadata cache by collaborating with the LLC. Our work effectively reduces overheads making secure memory more accessible. Compared to a non-speculative secure memory design with a small metadata cache (i.e. Intel SGX), our work reduces delay overhead from 28% down to 8% and energy overhead from 55% down to 17% on average across three benchmark suites.
Bio:
Tamara Silbergleit Lehman is a PhD candidate at Duke university advised by Andrew Hilton and Benjamin Lee. Her research interests lie on the intersection of computer architecture and security. She is also interested in memory systems, simulation methodologies and emerging technologies. Her thesis work focuses on reducing overheads of secure memory. Tamara has a Bachelor's degree from University of Florida in Industrial Engineering and a Masters degree in Computer Engineering from Duke University. Her latest publication on understanding metadata access patterns in secure memory at ISPASS 2018, MAPS, won the best paper award. Her earlier work on developing a safe speculation mechanism for secure memory, PoisonIvy, published in MICRO 2016 got an honorable mention in Micro Top Picks.
Contact
Evgenia Smirni