Project Grant 2340777
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $353,258 Project Grant under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program to The Regents of the University of Colorado (CU) for the project "CAREER: SECURITY AS A FIRST-CLASS DESIGN CONSTRAINT IN COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE." The project aims to develop new abstract methods for reasoning about hardware vulnerabilities and an evaluation infrastructure that can be integrated into hardware design tools to incorporate...
- This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program, with a total funding of $122,767, supports a research project by the University of California, Berkeley aimed at hardening off-the-shelf software against side channel attacks. The project consists of three main tasks: (1) reverse engineering hardware structures to determine potential attack vectors, (2) designing software transformations to protect against side...
- This National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER: Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program project grant for $347,792, awarded on August 15, 2025, supports the development of an end-to-end framework for designing, analyzing, and securing fine-grained hardware-assisted security primitives for resource-constrained embedded devices. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness of hardware-based malware detection solutions, leading to lightweight and robust security primitives for...
- This three-year, $483,326 National Science Foundation project grant funds research at the University of Florida to develop countermeasures against laser-assisted side-channel attacks on integrated circuits. Side-channel attacks extract secret keys and data from chips using probing techniques, compromising systems in critical infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, aerospace and defense. The researchers will investigate "Eradicator," a multi-layer suite of sensors, randomization and tamper...
- This two-year, $600,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Computer and Information Science and Engineering program aims to advance side-channel analysis and protection through deep learning techniques. Funded research at Northeastern University will develop novel methods for applying deep neural networks to both microarchitectural side-channel attacks and effective countermeasures. Key products include a persistent cache monitoring mechanism to improve observation of victim...
- This National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Federal Grant Award (CFDA 47.070) in the amount of $400,000.00 will support a collaborative research project titled "FMITF: TRACK I: AVA: ARCHITECTURAL INSIGHTS FOR FORMAL VERIFICATION OF COMPUTER ARCHITECTURES" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2027. The key objectives of this project are to: Develop architecture-driven abstractions,...
- This $600,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070) supports research at the University of California, Davis to address security vulnerabilities in cloud computing infrastructure and develop defenses against targeted microarchitectural attacks. Over a four-year period from July 2022 to June 2026, the university will conduct a comprehensive threat analysis of cloud schedulers and investigate software-based and...
- This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation supports research at the University of Southern California to develop a principled framework for modeling and analyzing the impact of hardware faults on embedded software. The award of $374,999 under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program will fund research over four years from July 2022 to June 2026. The researchers will design an instruction-set architecture-level fault model to capture the effects of hardware...
- This $510,336 Project Grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program (CFDA 47.070) to Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The grant supports research to develop advanced physical probing models, scalable validation tools, and provably secure design methods to address the critical vulnerability of side-channel information leakage in cryptographic hardware security. The research team is creating new probing models that...
- This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program (CFDA 47.070) provides $174,998 to The Trustees of the Stevens Institute of Technology to investigate timing side channels in adaptive neural networks. The project aims to: (1) define a threat model for exploiting timing channels to gain sensitive user information, (2) develop a machine learning-based pipeline to utilize these timing channels, (3) create an...
CAREER: UNDERSTANDING AND ENSURING SECURE-BY-DESIGN MICROARCHITECTURE IN MODERN ERA OF COMPUTING -MICROARCHITECTURAL ATTACKS (I.E., SIDE AND COVERT CHANNELS) HAVE OPENED A NEW CHAPTER IN COMPUTER SYSTEM SECURITY. THESE ATTACKS MANIFEST BY EXPLOITING TIMING OBSERVATIONS FROM MICROARCHITECTURAL EVENTS, LEADING TO EITHER ILLICIT COMMUNICATIONS AMONG ISOLATED ENTITIES OR EXFILTRATION OF PRIVATE DATA. DUE TO THE RAPID INTEGRATION OF NEW MICROARCHITECTURE INNOVATIONS BY BOTH INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA, IT IS WIDELY BELIEVED THAT THE MICROARCHITECTURAL ATTACK SURFACE WILL CONTINUOUSLY EXPAND. THEREFORE, A COMPREHENSIVE AND SCALABLE EVALUATION OF MICROARCHITECTURE SECURITY BEYOND MANUAL INSPECTION IS IMPERATIVE. THIS PROJECT INVESTIGATES SYSTEMATIC AND AUTOMATED LEAKAGE REASONING TECHNIQUES ON GIVEN MICROARCHITECTURE DESIGNS TO IDENTIFY NEW VULNERABLE MICROARCHITECTURAL STATES AND DISCOVER NOVEL EXPLOITATION MECHANISMS. THE PROJECT THEN EXPLORES PRINCIPLED MITIGATION AND PREVENTION TECHNIQUES TO THWART MICROARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION LEAKAGE. THIS PROJECT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING COMPLEMENTARY RESEARCH EFFORTS: (1) BUILDING MODELS USING MICROARCHITECTURE-LEVEL ABSTRACTION AND CONSTRUCTING MODEL CHECKING-BASED FRAMEWORKS THAT REASON TIMING EXPLICITLY FOR MICROARCHITECTURAL LEAKAGE ANALYSIS; (2) DEVELOPING WAYS TO INSTANTIATE MICROARCHITECTURAL VULNERABLE ABSTRACT PATTERNS TO ISA-LEVEL EXECUTIONS, VALIDATE AND QUANTIFY NEW LEAKAGE ATTACK VECTORS IN BOTH COMMERCIAL-OFF-THE-SHELF HARDWARE AND NOVEL MICROARCHITECTURAL MECHANISMS FOR FUTURE SYSTEMS; (3) EXPLORING LEAKAGE-FREE AND COMPOSABLE SECURE MICROARCHITECTURE SCHEMES WITH LOW OVERHEAD BY EMPLOYING MITIGATION TECHNIQUES ACCORDING TO PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UNDERLYING HARDWARE. THE PROOF-OF-CONCEPT ATTACK/DEFENSE ARTIFACTS AND ANALYSIS TOOLS DEVELOPED FROM THIS PROJECT COULD BENEFIT COMPUTER ARCHITECTS AND SYSTEM DESIGNERS IN ASSESSING AND LIMITING MICROARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION LEAKAGE. THIS PROJECT ALSO OFFERS EXTENSIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AND UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUPS TO ENGAGE IN THE FIELD OF COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND SECURITY THROUGH A SYNERGY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH TRAINING EFFORTS. SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES OF THIS PROJECT CAN PROVIDE HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDINGS OF MICROARCHITECTURE SECURITY AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECURE-BY-DESIGN ARCHITECTURES IN MODERN AND FUTURE COMPUTING. THIS AWARD REFLECTS NSF'S STATUTORY MISSION AND HAS BEEN DEEMED WORTHY OF SUPPORT THROUGH EVALUATION USING THE FOUNDATION'S INTELLECTUAL MERIT AND BROADER IMPACTS REVIEW CRITERIA.- SUBAWARDS ARE NOT PLANNED FOR THIS AWARD.
Mod # | Description | ReasonForModification | Federal Obligation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not listed | $111.3k | 9/15/25 | ||
| Not listed | $213.7k | 3/3/24 |