Defending Data from SRAM-Based Attacks.

The accompanying paper "SRAM has no chill: exploiting power domain separation to steal on-chip secrets," by Mahmod and Hicks, reveals a new class of physical memory attacks that challenge long-held assumptions about system-on-chip (SoC) security. While traditional cold boot attacks targeted DRAM's a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Communications of the ACM Vol. 68; no. 8; pp. 81 - 82
Autor principal: Saroiu, Stefan
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Association for Computing Machinery Aug2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:The accompanying paper "SRAM has no chill: exploiting power domain separation to steal on-chip secrets," by Mahmod and Hicks, reveals a new class of physical memory attacks that challenge long-held assumptions about system-on-chip (SoC) security. While traditional cold boot attacks targeted DRAM's ability to retain data briefly after power loss, this work shows that SRAM can also preserve data—if its power domain is intentionally kept on during a system reboot. By attaching a voltage probe and rebooting the SoC while keeping SRAM powered, attackers can retrieve sensitive data previously thought to be safe. This finding could reshape how hardware and software systems defend against physical memory attacks, prompting new research in both areas.