Securing Data Where It Makes Sense: In-Memory Encryption

Year 2020, Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 126 - 139, 01.06.2020

Tolga Yalcin

Abstract

Memory encryption has been an active research area in the recent decade. While the initial focus was on securing data in pervasive applications, recent efforts by Intel and AMD has brought memory encryption to general purpose processors as well. This has been mainly due to new threat models which necessitated securing real-time OS data inside RAM. The existing approaches use dedicated crypto engines that act as a buffer between the memory and the processor. In this study, we propose a novel approach where we combine a new paradigm in computing, in-memory processing, and cryptography to secure data inside the memory. We propose an in-memory encryption engine capable of utilizing processing capabilities of dynamic random access memories. We demonstrate the viability and efficiency of our proposal by implementing NSA cipher SIMON on our engine and show that encryption of a 1~Gb DRAM module can be completed in under 20~ms.

Keywords

In-memory processing, DDR, memory, encryption, SIMON

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