Efficient memory integrity verification and encryption for secure processors

Abstract

Secure processors enable new sets of applications such as commercial grid computing, software copy-protection, and secure mobile agents by providing security from both physical and software attacks. This paper proposes new hardware mechanisms for memory integrity verification and encryption, which are two key primitives required in single-chip secure processors. The integrity verification mechanism offers significant performance advantages over existing ones when the checks are infrequent as in grid computing applications. The encryption mechanism improves the performance in all cases.