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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2022.18

RT-DFI: Optimizing Data-Flow Integrity for Real-Time Systems

Authors: Nicolas Bellec, Guillaume Hiet, Simon Rokicki, Frederic Tronel, and Isabelle Puaut

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 231, 34th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2022)

Abstract

The emergence of Real-Time Systems with increased connections to their environment has led to a greater demand in security for these systems. Memory corruption attacks, which modify the memory to trigger unexpected executions, are a significant threat against applications written in low-level languages. Data-Flow Integrity (DFI) is a protection that verifies that only a trusted source has written any loaded data. The overhead of such a security mechanism remains a major issue that limits its adoption. This article presents RT-DFI, a new approach that optimizes Data-Flow Integrity to reduce its overhead on the Worst-Case Execution Time. We model the number and order of the checks and use an Integer Linear Programming solver to optimize the protection on the Worst-Case Execution Path. Our approach protects the program against many memory-corruption attacks, including Return-Oriented Programming and Data-Only attacks. Moreover, our experimental results show that our optimization reduces the overhead by 7% on average compared to a state-of-the-art implementation.

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Nicolas Bellec, Guillaume Hiet, Simon Rokicki, Frederic Tronel, and Isabelle Puaut. RT-DFI: Optimizing Data-Flow Integrity for Real-Time Systems. In 34th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 231, pp. 18:1-18:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{bellec_et_al:LIPIcs.ECRTS.2022.18,
  author =	{Bellec, Nicolas and Hiet, Guillaume and Rokicki, Simon and Tronel, Frederic and Puaut, Isabelle},
  title =	{{RT-DFI: Optimizing Data-Flow Integrity for Real-Time Systems}},
  booktitle =	{34th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2022)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-239-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{231},
  editor =	{Maggio, Martina},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2022.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-163351},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2022.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Real-time system, Software security, Data-flow integrity, Worst-case execution time}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2020.8

Attack Detection Through Monitoring of Timing Deviations in Embedded Real-Time Systems

Authors: Nicolas Bellec, Simon Rokicki, and Isabelle Puaut

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 165, 32nd Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2020)

Abstract

Real-time embedded systems (RTES) are required to interact more and more with their environment, thereby increasing their attack surface. Recent security breaches on car brakes and other critical components have already proven the feasibility of attacks on RTES. Such attacks may change the control-flow of the programs, which may lead to violations of the system’s timing constraints. In this paper, we present a technique to detect attacks in RTES based on timing information. Our technique, designed for single-core processors, is based on a monitor implemented in hardware to preserve the predictability of instrumented programs. The monitor uses timing information (Worst-Case Execution Time - WCET) of code regions to detect attacks. The proposed technique guarantees that attacks that delay the run-time of any region beyond its WCET are detected. Since the number of regions in programs impacts the memory resources consumed by the hardware monitor, our method includes a region selection algorithm that limits the amount of memory consumed by the monitor. An implementation of the hardware monitor and its simulation demonstrates the practicality of our approach. In particular, an experimental study evaluates the attack detection latency.

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Nicolas Bellec, Simon Rokicki, and Isabelle Puaut. Attack Detection Through Monitoring of Timing Deviations in Embedded Real-Time Systems. In 32nd Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 165, pp. 8:1-8:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{bellec_et_al:LIPIcs.ECRTS.2020.8,
  author =	{Bellec, Nicolas and Rokicki, Simon and Puaut, Isabelle},
  title =	{{Attack Detection Through Monitoring of Timing Deviations in Embedded Real-Time Systems}},
  booktitle =	{32nd Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2020)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-152-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{165},
  editor =	{V\"{o}lp, Marcus},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2020.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-123719},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2020.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Real-time systems, security, attack detection, control flow hijacking, WCET estimation, hardware monitoring}
}

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RT-DFI: Optimizing Data-Flow Integrity for Real-Time Systems

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Attack Detection Through Monitoring of Timing Deviations in Embedded Real-Time Systems

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