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Timing covert channel analysis of the VxWorks MILS embedded hypervisor under the common criteria security certification

2021; Elsevier BV; Volume: 106; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.cose.2021.102307

1872-6208

Domenico Cotroneo, Luigi De Simone, Roberto Natella,

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security

Virtualization technology is nowadays adopted in security-critical embedded systems to achieve higher performance and more design flexibility. However, it also comes with new security threats, where attackers leverage timing covert channels to exfiltrate sensitive information from a partition using a trojan. This paper presents a novel approach for the experimental assessment of timing covert channels in embedded hypervisors, with a case study on security assessment of a commercial hypervisor product (Wind River VxWorks MILS), in cooperation with a licensed laboratory for the Common Criteria security certification. Our experimental analysis shows that it is indeed possible to establish a timing covert channel, and that the approach is useful for system designers for assessing that their configuration is robust against this kind of information leakage.