Visible to the public Combination of ROP Defense Mechanisms for Better Safety and Security in Embedded Systems

TitleCombination of ROP Defense Mechanisms for Better Safety and Security in Embedded Systems
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2022
AuthorsLehniger, Kai, Schölze, Mario, Jelonek, Jonas, Tabatt, Peter, Aftowicz, Marcin, Langendorfer, Peter
Conference Name2022 25th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD)
KeywordsARM, codes, composability, Control flow integ-rity, digital systems, Embedded systems, Hardware, human factors, Program processors, pubcrawl, Resiliency, return-oriented programming, rop attacks, Safety, Scalability, Software, Xtensa
AbstractControl flow integrity (CFI) checks are used in desktop systems, in order to protect them from various forms of attacks, but they are rarely investigated for embedded systems, due to their introduced overhead. The contribution of this paper is an efficient software implementation of a CFI-check for ARM-and Xtensa processors. Moreover, we propose the combination of this CFI-check with another defense mechanism against return-oriented-programming (ROP). We show that by this combination the security is significantly improved. Moreover, it will also in-crease the safety of the system, since the combination can detect a failed ROP-attack and bring the system in a safe state, which is not possible when using each technique separately. We will also report on the introduced overhead in code size and run time.
DOI10.1109/DSD57027.2022.00070
Citation Keylehniger_combination_2022