Enabling User Space Secure Hardware

Coughlin, Aimee Mikaela

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Enabling User Space Secure Hardware Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/6969z097m

Abstract

User space software allows developers to customize applications beyond the limits of the privileged operating system. In this dissertation, we extend this concept to the hardware in the system, providing applications with the ability to define secure hardware; effectively enabling hardware to be treated as a user space resource. This addresses a significant challenge facing industry today, which has an increasing need for secure hardware. With the ever increasing leaks of private data, increasing use of a variety of computing platforms controlled by third parties, and increasing sophistication of attacks, secure hardware, now more than ever, is needed to provide protections we need. However, the current ecosystem of secure hardware is fractured and limited. Developers are left with few choices of platforms to implement their applications and oftentimes the choices don’t fully meet their needs. Instead of relying on manufacturers to make the correct design decisions and ensuring that these platforms are implemented correctly, we enable applications to define the exact secure hardware that it needs to protect itself and its data. This vision leverages the emergence of programmable hardware, specifically FPGAs, to serve as the basis of user space secure hardware. The challenges of this, however, are that (i) sharing of FPGA resources among multiple applications is not currently practical, and (ii) the reprogrammability of FPGAs compromises the security properties of secure hardware. We address these challenges by introducing two systems, Cloud RTR and Software Defined Secure Hardware, which individually solve each challenge, and then combine these solutions together to realize the complete vision. Cloud RTR solves the first challenge by leveraging cloud compilation to allow for an FPGA to be shared between applications, making hardware into a user space resource. SDSHW solves the second challenge by introducing a self-provisioning system that allows for an FPGA to provisioned into a secure state, allowing for secure hardware to be run in an FPGA. We then combine these two systems to implement the user space hardware provided by Cloud RTR on the secure platform provided by SDSHW, which provides our vision of user space secure hardware.

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