Hardware Security Features and Their Impact

Software-only solutions for preventing attackers from exploiting memory errors face two problems: They are too expensive to be broadly deployed. They are prone to circumvention. These issues have motivated researchers to explore how to build and implement more reliable, efficient defensive features in hardware. Exploring Hardware Security Approaches The ongoing research efforts into the development, use, and evaluation of security-related hardware features and techniques are examined in a recent special issue of IEEE Security and Privacy magazine. In their introduction to the issue, “The Impact of Emerging Hardware on Security and Privacy,” guest editors Trent Jaeger, Brent ByungHoon Kang, Nele Mentens, and Cynthia Sturton note several new hardware approaches to improving software security, including Fine-grained con­trol of memory access, such as Intel’s memory protection extensions (MPKs) and extended page-table (EPT) switching Trusted execution environments (TEEs) that reduc ... Read full article.