Electrical-Level Attacks on CPUs, FPGAs, and GPUs: Survey and Implications in the Heterogeneous Era

Mirjana Stojilovic, Dina Gamaleldin Ahmed Shawky Mahmoud
2022
Journal paper

Abstract

Given the need for efficient high-performance computing, computer architectures combining CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs are nowadays prevalent. However, each of these components suffers from electrical-level security risks. Moving to heterogeneous systems, with the potential of multitenancy, it is essential to understand and investigate how the security vulnerabilities of individual components may affect the system as a whole. In this work, we provide a survey on the electrical-level attacks on CPUs, FPGAs, and GPUs. Additionally, we discuss whether these attacks can extend to heterogeneous systems and highlight open research directions for ensuring the security of heterogeneous computing systems in the future.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/291839?ln=en

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Ontological neighbourhood

Computer engineering

Hardware engineering: Microprocessors

Computer security: Information security

Related concepts (33)

Related publications (41)

Related MOOCs (4)

Central processing unit

A central processing unit (CPU)—also called a central processor or main processor—is the most important processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged.

Heterogeneous System Architecture

Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) is a cross-vendor set of specifications that allow for the integration of central processing units and graphics processors on the same bus, with shared memory and tasks. The HSA is being developed by the HSA Foundation, which includes (among many others) AMD and ARM. The platform's stated aim is to reduce communication latency between CPUs, GPUs and other compute devices, and make these various devices more compatible from a programmer's perspective, relieving the programmer of the task of planning the moving of data between devices' disjoint memories (as must currently be done with OpenCL or CUDA).

Heterogeneous computing

Heterogeneous computing refers to systems that use more than one kind of processor or core. These systems gain performance or energy efficiency not just by adding the same type of processors, but by adding dissimilar coprocessors, usually incorporating specialized processing capabilities to handle particular tasks. Usually heterogeneity in the context of computing referred to different instruction-set architectures (ISA), where the main processor has one and other processors have another - usually a very different - architecture (maybe more than one), not just a different microarchitecture (floating point number processing is a special case of this - not usually referred to as heterogeneous).

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