A Novel Side-channel Attack That Utilizes Memory Re-orderings (U. of Washington, Duke, UCSC et al.)


A new technical paper titled "Memory DisOrder: Memory Re-orderings as a Timerless Side-channel" was published by researchers at University of Washington, Duke University, UC Santa Cruz, Raytheon and Microsoft Research. Abstract "To improve efficiency, nearly all parallel processing units (CPUs and GPUs) implement relaxed memory models in which memory operations may be re-ordered, i.e., ex... » read more

Two-Stage Hardware Fuzzer (TU Darmstadt)


A new technical paper titled "GoldenFuzz: Generative Golden Reference Hardware Fuzzing" was published by researchers at TU Darmstadt. Abstract "Modern hardware systems, driven by demands for high performance and application-specific functionality, have grown increasingly complex, introducing large surfaces for bugs and security-critical vulnerabilities. Fuzzing has emerged as a scalable sol... » read more

Adaptive Fuzzing Framework that Reuses Tests from Prior Processors (Texas A&M, TU Darmstadt)


A new technical paper titled "ReFuzz: Reusing Tests for Processor Fuzzing with Contextual Bandits" was published by researchers at Texas A&M University and TU Darmstadt. Abstract "Processor designs rely on iterative modifications and reuse well-established designs. However, this reuse of prior designs also leads to similar vulnerabilities across multiple processors. As processors grow... » read more

Analysis of RISC-V CPU Fuzzers via Automatic Bug Injection (ETH Zurich)


A new technical paper titled "Encarsia: Evaluating CPU Fuzzers via Automatic Bug Injection" was published by researchers at ETH Zurich. Abstract "Hardware fuzzing has recently gained momentum with many discovered bugs in open-source RISC-V CPU designs. Comparing the effectiveness of different hardware fuzzers, however, remains a challenge: each fuzzer optimizes for a different metric and ... » read more

Pre-Silicon Verification Method Addressing Critical Aspects of Speculative Execution Vulnerability Detection


A new technical paper titled "Lost and Found in Speculation: Hybrid Speculative Vulnerability Detection" was published by researchers at Technical University of Darmstadt and Texas A&M University. "We introduce Specure, a novel pre-silicon verification method composing hardware fuzzing with Information Flow Tracking (IFT) to address speculative execution leakages. Integrating IFT enables two... » read more

Hardware Fuzzer Utilizing LLMs


A new technical paper titled "Beyond Random Inputs: A Novel ML-Based Hardware Fuzzing" was published by researchers at TU Darmstadt and Texas A&M University. Abstract "Modern computing systems heavily rely on hardware as the root of trust. However, their increasing complexity has given rise to security-critical vulnerabilities that cross-layer at-tacks can exploit. Traditional hardware ... » read more

Hardware Fuzzing With MAB Algorithms


A technical paper titled “MABFuzz: Multi-Armed Bandit Algorithms for Fuzzing Processors” was published by researchers at Texas A&M University and Technische Universitat Darmstadt. Abstract: "As the complexities of processors keep increasing, the task of effectively verifying their integrity and security becomes ever more daunting. The intricate web of instructions, microarchitectural ... » read more

Hardware Fuzzing (U. of Michigan, Google, Virginia Tech)


A technical paper titled "Fuzzing Hardware Like Software" was published by researchers at University of Michigan, Google and Virginia Tech. The paper was presented at the 2022 Usenix Security Symposium. Abstract: "Hardware flaws are permanent and potent: hardware cannot be patched once fabricated, and any flaws may undermine even formally verified software executing on top. Consequently, ve... » read more