Research Talk: SAFE - Secure Architectural Framework Enhancement
Title:
SAFE - Secure Architectural Framework Enhancement
Authors:
Dr. David Mayhew,
Raghul Prakash, College of Engineering
Andre Hatushikano, College of Engineering
Ruoyi Chen, College of Engineering
Enes Shaltami, College of Engineering
Sen Wang, College of Engineering
Tuhin Sarkar, College of Engineering
Prateek Garg, College of Engineering
Abstract:
Our work for this project is to come up with a prototype of SAFE architected by Dr. David Mayhew, CTO of Universant Processors. Computer security has become increasingly important with various vulnerabilities and exploits found periodically in kernel and application software based on attacks such as buffer and heap overflow attacks, side-channel attacks, privilege escalation attacks, and packet sniffing attacks in network systems. These inherently software problems cannot be patched by software alone for it is like adding fuel to fire. The only way to solve this would be to make use of hardware-enforced containerization and segmentation using a redefined memory model. This is where Dr. Mayhew's SAFE model comes in. It preserves existing computer architecture models but modifies the memory model from the L1 cache up to the hard-disk drive. It completely replaces the microkernel found in modern operating systems with cache-based hardware containerization technology. It has a Process Management Unit (PMU) that is in charge of messaging and scheduling, a Secure-Networking Engine (SNE) that replaces the conventional networking stack with socket-based communication at the physical transport layer, a Cache Hierarchy (CH) that is a hardware-memory management system and a Last-Level Store (LLS) that is a pseudonym for a hard-disk drive. It preserves application software by translating OS syscalls that normally invoke a software kernel in modern operating systems with a SAFE adaptation layer that replaces them with SAFE-compliant signals. This preserves legacy software and processor architectures and enforces maximal computer security.
Mentor(s):
Dr. David Mayhew,
Cole Nelson
Chris Chiminski
Dr Mark Johnson