A formal analysis of prefetching in profiled cache-timing attacks on block ciphers (Q2043316)

In this paper, the authors investigate leakage in cryptosystem from several sources independently and consider data prefetching, which is used in most modern-day cache memories to reduce miss penalty. They construct a framework that would help computer architects theoretically gauge the impact of a data prefetcher in time-driven cache attacks early in the design phase. The framework computes leakage due to the prefetcher using a metric based on the Kullback-Leibler transformation. They use the framework to analyze two commonly used prefetching algorithms, namely sequential and arbitrary-stride prefetching. These form the basis of several other prefetching algorithms. Further, they have demonstrated its use by designing a new prefetching algorithm called even-odd prefetcher that does not have leakage in time-driven cache attacks. This work is novel and interesting for researchers working in this area.