MAD: Microarchitectural Attacks and Defenses (Dagstuhl Seminar 23481)

Microarchitectural attacks subvert the security assumptions many software-level security mechanisms rely upon, thereby threatening the security of our IT systems. These attacks exploit the side-effects (like subtle timing differences in a program’s execution time) resulting from a processor’s internal optimizations to leak sensitive information and compromise a system’s security. Building systems that are resistant against such attacks requires fundamentally rethinking the design of hardware and software security mechanisms. This seminar gathered together leading researchers that are working on security at the hardware-software interface spanning four different communities: computer security, computer architectures, programming languages and verification, and applied cryptography. The goals were to (1) present a comprehensive overview of current advances in microarchitectural attacks and defenses, (2) foster interaction and future collaboration between researchers from different research communities, and (3) identify interesting research directions and open challenges that need to be addressed to build the next generation of systems that are resistant to microarchitectural attacks.