Cauldron: a framework to defend against cache-based side-channel attacks in clouds

Cache-based side-channel attacks have garnered much interest in recent literature. Such attacks are particularly relevant for cloud computing platforms due to high levels of multi-tenancy. In fact, there exists recent work that demonstrates such attacks on real cloud platforms (e.g., DotCloud). In this thesis we present Cauldron, a framework to defend against such cache-based side-channel attacks. Cauldron uses a combination of smart scheduling techniques and microarchitectural mechanisms to achieve this goal. We are able to demonstrate improved defenses against both cross-core side channel attacks that target shared caches as well as same-core attacks. Furthermore, Cauldron is transparent to the user - requiring no modi cation (or even recompilation) of users' application binaries by integrating directly with the popular container runtime framework, Docker. Preliminary evaluation results show that the proposed approach is effective for cloud computing applications.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Ahmad, Mohammad

Contributors dc:contributor

• Campbell, Roy H.
• Bobba, Rakesh B.

• Cache-based side-channel attacks
• Cloud computing
• Containers
• Virtualization
• Docker

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Mohammad Ahmad

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90967

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/90967