POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities

S. Karen Khatamifard; Longfei Wang; Amitabh Das; Selcuk Kose; Ulya R. Karpuzcu

doi:10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities

S. Karen Khatamifard, Longfei Wang, Amitabh Das, Selcuk Kose, Ulya R. Karpuzcu

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

To be able to meet demanding application performance requirements within a tight power budget, runtime power management must track hardware activity at a very fine granularity in both space and time. This gives rise to sophisticated power management algorithms, which need the underlying system to be both highly observable (to be able to sense changes in instantaneous power demand timely) and controllable (to be able to react to changes in instantaneous power demand timely). The end goal is allocating the power budget, which itself represents a very critical shared resource, in a fair way among active tasks of execution. Fundamentally, if not carefully managed, any system-wide shared resource can give rise to covert communication. Power budget does not represent an exception, particularly as systems are becoming more and more observable and controllable. In this paper, we demonstrate how power management vulnerabilities can enable covert communication over a previously unexplored, novel class of covert channels which we will refer to as POWERT channels. We also provide a comprehensive characterization of the POWERT channel capacity under various sharing and activity scenarios. Our analysis based on experiments on representative commercial systems reveal a peak channel capacity of 121.6 bits per second (bps).

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	291-303
Number of pages	13
ISBN (Electronic)	9781728114446
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045
State	Published - Mar 26 2019
Event	25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019 - Washington, United States Duration: Feb 16 2019 → Feb 20 2019

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019

Conference

Conference	25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019
Country/Territory	United States
City	Washington
Period	2/16/19 → 2/20/19

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback.

Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.

Keywords

Covert channels
Power headroom modulation
Power management

Publisher link

10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

Find It

Find It at U of M Libraries

Cite this

Khatamifard, S. K., Wang, L., Das, A., Kose, S., & Karpuzcu, U. R. (2019). POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities. In Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019 (pp. 291-303). Article 8675190 (Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities. / Khatamifard, S. Karen; Wang, Longfei; Das, Amitabh et al.
Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2019. p. 291-303 8675190 (Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Khatamifard, SK, Wang, L, Das, A, Kose, S & Karpuzcu, UR 2019, POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities. in Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019., 8675190, Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 291-303, 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019, Washington, United States, 2/16/19. https://doi.org/10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

Khatamifard SK, Wang L, Das A, Kose S, Karpuzcu UR. POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities. In Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2019. p. 291-303. 8675190. (Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019). doi: 10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

Khatamifard, S. Karen ; Wang, Longfei ; Das, Amitabh et al. / POWERT channels : A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities. Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2019. pp. 291-303 (Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019).

@inproceedings{7823e8f821fa4612b290eb646eadc9ce,

title = "POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities",

abstract = "To be able to meet demanding application performance requirements within a tight power budget, runtime power management must track hardware activity at a very fine granularity in both space and time. This gives rise to sophisticated power management algorithms, which need the underlying system to be both highly observable (to be able to sense changes in instantaneous power demand timely) and controllable (to be able to react to changes in instantaneous power demand timely). The end goal is allocating the power budget, which itself represents a very critical shared resource, in a fair way among active tasks of execution. Fundamentally, if not carefully managed, any system-wide shared resource can give rise to covert communication. Power budget does not represent an exception, particularly as systems are becoming more and more observable and controllable. In this paper, we demonstrate how power management vulnerabilities can enable covert communication over a previously unexplored, novel class of covert channels which we will refer to as POWERT channels. We also provide a comprehensive characterization of the POWERT channel capacity under various sharing and activity scenarios. Our analysis based on experiments on representative commercial systems reveal a peak channel capacity of 121.6 bits per second (bps).",

keywords = "Covert channels, Power headroom modulation, Power management",

author = "Khatamifard, {S. Karen} and Longfei Wang and Amitabh Das and Selcuk Kose and Karpuzcu, {Ulya R.}",

note = "Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback. Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 IEEE.; 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019 ; Conference date: 16-02-2019 Through 20-02-2019",

year = "2019",

month = mar,

day = "26",

doi = "10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045",

language = "English (US)",

series = "Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019",

publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

pages = "291--303",

booktitle = "Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019",

}

TY - GEN

T1 - POWERT channels

T2 - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019

AU - Khatamifard, S. Karen

AU - Wang, Longfei

AU - Das, Amitabh

AU - Kose, Selcuk

AU - Karpuzcu, Ulya R.

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback. Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award under Grant CCF-1350451, in part by the National Science Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corporation SaTC:STARSS Award under Grant CNS-1715286, and in part by a Cisco Research Award. The authors would like to thank numerous anonymous reviewers, and particularly Meisam Razaviyayn for constructive feedback. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 IEEE.

PY - 2019/3/26

Y1 - 2019/3/26

N2 - To be able to meet demanding application performance requirements within a tight power budget, runtime power management must track hardware activity at a very fine granularity in both space and time. This gives rise to sophisticated power management algorithms, which need the underlying system to be both highly observable (to be able to sense changes in instantaneous power demand timely) and controllable (to be able to react to changes in instantaneous power demand timely). The end goal is allocating the power budget, which itself represents a very critical shared resource, in a fair way among active tasks of execution. Fundamentally, if not carefully managed, any system-wide shared resource can give rise to covert communication. Power budget does not represent an exception, particularly as systems are becoming more and more observable and controllable. In this paper, we demonstrate how power management vulnerabilities can enable covert communication over a previously unexplored, novel class of covert channels which we will refer to as POWERT channels. We also provide a comprehensive characterization of the POWERT channel capacity under various sharing and activity scenarios. Our analysis based on experiments on representative commercial systems reveal a peak channel capacity of 121.6 bits per second (bps).

AB - To be able to meet demanding application performance requirements within a tight power budget, runtime power management must track hardware activity at a very fine granularity in both space and time. This gives rise to sophisticated power management algorithms, which need the underlying system to be both highly observable (to be able to sense changes in instantaneous power demand timely) and controllable (to be able to react to changes in instantaneous power demand timely). The end goal is allocating the power budget, which itself represents a very critical shared resource, in a fair way among active tasks of execution. Fundamentally, if not carefully managed, any system-wide shared resource can give rise to covert communication. Power budget does not represent an exception, particularly as systems are becoming more and more observable and controllable. In this paper, we demonstrate how power management vulnerabilities can enable covert communication over a previously unexplored, novel class of covert channels which we will refer to as POWERT channels. We also provide a comprehensive characterization of the POWERT channel capacity under various sharing and activity scenarios. Our analysis based on experiments on representative commercial systems reveal a peak channel capacity of 121.6 bits per second (bps).

KW - Covert channels

KW - Power headroom modulation

KW - Power management

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064227849&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85064227849&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

DO - 10.1109/HPCA.2019.00045

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85064227849

T3 - Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019

SP - 291

EP - 303

BT - Proceedings - 25th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, HPCA 2019

PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Y2 - 16 February 2019 through 20 February 2019

ER -

POWERT channels: A novel class of covert communication exploiting power management vulnerabilities

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Publisher link

Find It

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this