Biblio

With the recent proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) and embedded devices, there is a growing need to develop a security framework to protect such devices. RISC-V is a promising open source architecture that targets low-power embedded devices and SoCs. However, there is a dearth of practical and low-overhead security solutions in the RISC-V architecture. Programs compiled using RISC-V toolchains are still vulnerable to code injection and code reuse attacks such as buffer overflow and return-oriented programming (ROP). In this paper, we propose FIXER, a hardware implemented security extension to RISC-V that provides a defense mechanism against such attacks. FIXER enforces fine-grained control-flow integrity (CFI) of running programs on backward edges (returns) and forward edges (calls) without requiring any architectural modifications to the RISC-V processor core. We implement FIXER on RocketChip, a RISC-V SoC platform, by leveraging the integrated Rocket Custom Coprocessor (RoCC) to detect and prevent attacks. Compared to existing software based solutions, FIXER reduces energy overhead by 60% at minimal execution time (1.5%) and area (2.9%) overheads.

Every so often papers are published presenting a new extension for modelling cyber security requirements in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The frequent production of new extensions by experts belies the need for a richer and more usable representation of security requirements in BPMN processes. In this paper, we present our work considering an analysis of existing extensions and identify the notational issues present within each of them. We discuss how there is yet no single extension which represents a comprehensive range of cyber security concepts. Consequently, there is no adequate solution for accurately specifying cyber security requirements within BPMN. In order to address this, we propose a new framework that can be used to extend, visualise and verify cyber security requirements in not only BPMN, but any other existing modelling language. The framework comprises of the three core roles necessary for the successful development of a security extension. With each of these being further subdivided into the respective components each role must complete.