Real-Time Hardware-Based Malware and Micro-Architectural Attack Detection Utilizing CMOS Reservoir Computing

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate a novel CMOS reservoir computer (RC) prototype in 65nm CMOS that is capable of detecting Malware and micro-architectural attacks in real-time utilizing hardware performance counter (HPC) traces. A 65nm test chip achieves 96.8% and 96.5% accuracy when classifying Malware and micro-architectural attacks respectively, while achieving better classification performance than digital machine learning models and with lower energy consumption. The on-chip classifier consumes <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$38.2~\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> from a 1.2V supply while running at 40kHz.