Secure Non Volatile Memory
Non-volatile storage technologies have advanced so much in the last several years that system architects are now considering using them as main memory. Recently Intel came out with their new non-volatile technology, Intel Optane Persistent Memory, that integrates a non-volatile storage device to be used as main memory. A lot of work has gone into making sure this new technology performs just as fast as its volatile counterparts. However, not many pieces of work have looked at how to secure the data in non-volatile memory against physical attacks. In this work we are looking at ways of redesigning the secure memory constructs to be applicable to non-volatile memory devices. We are looking to integrate both hardware and software techniques to protect a system that uses non-volatile main memory from physical attacks, privilege escalation attacks and attacks that look to scramble values in memory to steal secrets (e.g. rowhammer attacks). We also want to take advantage of the durability of the non-volatile devices to design ways of recovering from attacks.
Student
Sam Thomas