http://theory.csail.mit.edu/~sethg/cgi/blosxom.cgi/tromer.html?seem
Modern processors employ various virtualization and access control mechanisms to protect the content of processes' memory. However, information about the memory *addresses* being accessed is leaking through a shared resource, namely the processor's memory cache. This talk will show how this ubiquitous resource can be practically exploited as a side channel, and describe the cryptanalytic applications to various ciphers. Experimental results include, for example, full recovery of an AES key from a Linux encrypted filesystem using just 800 analyzed encryptions. Implications include violations of security boundaries in many multi-user, sandboxed and virtualized systems, as well as web content and DRM mechanisms.
Joint work with Adi Shamir and Dag Arne Osvik.
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