Siloz: Leveraging DRAM Isolation Domains to Prevent Inter-VM Rowhammer
Kevin Loughlin, Jonah Rosenblum, Stefan Saroiu, Alec Wolman, Dimitrios Skarlatos, Baris Kasikci
Abstract
Today's cloud DRAM lacks strong isolation primitives, highlighted by Rowhammer bit flips. Rowhammer poses an increasing threat to cloud security/reliability, given (1) DRAM activation rates in commodity and malicious workloads already exceed Rowhammer thresholds, and (2) thresholds are decreasing in newer DRAM. Deployed hardware mitigations remain vulnerable, turning cloud providers toward software defenses. However, existing defenses incur high performance or memory overhead or contain significant protection gaps.
Topics & Concepts
DramCloud computingReliability (semiconductor)Computer scienceIsolation (microbiology)Overhead (engineering)Embedded systemOperating systemComputer securityComputer hardwareMicrobiologyBiologyPhysicsQuantum mechanicsPower (physics)Security and Verification in ComputingCloud Data Security SolutionsPhysical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security