Research Article
Protecting Encryption Keys in Mobile Systems Against Memory Errors
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.14-12-2015.2262698, author={Jianing Zhao and Peter Kemper}, title={Protecting Encryption Keys in Mobile Systems Against Memory Errors}, proceedings={9th EAI International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools}, publisher={ACM}, proceedings_a={VALUETOOLS}, year={2016}, month={1}, keywords={mobile systems encryption fault injection simulation memory errors software reliability}, doi={10.4108/eai.14-12-2015.2262698} }- Jianing Zhao
Peter Kemper
Year: 2016
Protecting Encryption Keys in Mobile Systems Against Memory Errors
VALUETOOLS
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/eai.14-12-2015.2262698
Abstract
Beyond its use to encrypt data, an encryption key can be used as a mean to control access to data on a mobile de-vice by leveraging a cloud service. This implies that a key is present in a mobile device only when it is on demand and authorized by the cloud, the key is evicted when it is not in use. CleanOS is an example system that is based on this concept. For security reasons, keys are stored only in DRAM memory during execution, which makes them susceptible to memory errors. In this paper, we identify scenarios where a memory error that damages a key can escalate to an unrecoverable data loss in a mobile system.
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