Hiding Decryption Latency in Intel SGX using Metadata Prediction

Hardware-Assisted Trusted Execution Environment technologies have become a crucial component in providing security for cloud-based computing. One of such hardware-assisted countermeasures is Intel Software Guard Extension (SGX). Using additional dedicated hardware and a new set of CPU instructions, SGX is able to provide isolated execution of code within trusted hardware containers called enclaves. By utilizing private encrypted memory and various integrity authentication mechanisms, it can provide confidentiality and integrity guarantees to protected data. In spite of dedicated hardware, these extra layers of security add a significant performance overhead. Decryption of data using secret OTPs, which are generated by modified Counter Mode Encryption AES blocks, results in a significant latency overhead that contributes to the overall SGX performance loss. This thesis introduces a metadata prediction extension to SGX based on local metadata releveling and prediction mechanisms. Correct prediction of metadata allows to speculatively precompute OTPs, which can be immediately used in decryption of incoming ciphertext data. This hides a significant part of decryption latency and results in faster SGX performance without any changes to the original SGX security guarantees.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Talapkaliyev, Daulet

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Patterson, Cameron D.
• Jian, Xun

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Plassmann, Paul E.

• High-performance Architecture
• Intel SGX
• Encryption
• Metadata Prediction

Statement dc:rights

• This item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. Some uses of this item may be deemed fair and permitted by law even without permission from the rights holder(s), or the rights holder(s) may have licensed the work for use under certain conditions. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights holder(s).

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:23859

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/111236