Research problems and opportunities in NoC-based side channel attacks and defenses: lessons learned from cache-based side channels

We are entering a new era of computer architecture, where security and privacy are playing an increasingly important role. However, recent attacks such as Spectre, Meltdown and various side channel attacks have shown how vulnerable modern computer hardware is. It is urgent to address security problems related to every hardware component, including the network-on-chip. In this talk, I will focus on discussing research problems and opportunities related to NoC-based side channel attacks. I will start with a brief introduction on side channel attacks and the threats posed by side channel attacks that exploit the network-on-chip, including latency-based and bandwidth-based ones. Next, I will briefly review existing defense solutions against NoC-based side channel attacks. Existing work focuses on blocking or limiting interference of the NoC traffic across different security domains. Finally, I will conclude my talk by describing potential research directions towards designing secure NoCs and secure hardware processors.