HardBlare: an efficient hardware-assisted DIFC for non-modified embedded processors

Abstract : Information Flow Control is a security mechanisms that provides security guarantees about information propagation. Other security mechanisms such as access control or cryptography can be used to limit the dissemination of confidential information and the modification of high integrity contents. However, they do not enforce end-to-end properties. They cannot control the dissemination of information once file access is allowed or the data is decrypted. In this context, HardBlare proposes a software/hardware codesign methodology to ensure that security properties are preserved all allong the execution of the system but also during files storage. The general context of HardBlare is to address Dynamic Information Flow Control (DIFC) that generally consists in attaching marks (also known as tags) to denote the type of information that are saved or generated within the system.