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MemShield: GPU-Assisted Software Memory Encryption

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Book cover Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12147))

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Abstract

Cryptographic algorithm implementations are vulnerable to Cold Boot attacks, which consist in exploiting the persistence of RAM cells across reboots or power down cycles to read the memory contents and recover precious sensitive data. The principal defensive weapon against Cold Boot attacks is memory encryption. In this work we propose MemShield, a memory encryption framework for user space applications that exploits a GPU to safely store the master key and perform the encryption/decryption operations. We developed a prototype that is completely transparent to existing applications and does not require changes to the OS kernel. We discuss the design, the related works, the implementation, the security analysis, and the performances of MemShield.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank Emiliano Betti for his valuable suggestions, support, and encouragements. The material presented in this paper is based upon work partially supported by Epigenesys s.r.l.. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Epigenesys s.r.l..

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epigenesys s.r.l., Rome, Italy

    Pierpaolo Santucci & Emiliano Ingrassia

  2. University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

    Giulio Picierro & Marco Cesati

Authors
  1. Pierpaolo Santucci
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  2. Emiliano Ingrassia
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  3. Giulio Picierro
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  4. Marco Cesati
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giulio Picierro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Mauro Conti

  2. Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Jianying Zhou

  3. Dipt di Informatica Sistemi e Produ, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Roma, Italy

    Emiliano Casalicchio

  4. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Angelo Spognardi

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Santucci, P., Ingrassia, E., Picierro, G., Cesati, M. (2020). MemShield: GPU-Assisted Software Memory Encryption. In: Conti, M., Zhou, J., Casalicchio, E., Spognardi, A. (eds) Applied Cryptography and Network Security. ACNS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12147. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57878-7_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57878-7_16

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