A Primitive for Revealing Stealthy Peripheral-Based Attacks on the Computing Platform’s Main Memory

Abstract

Computer platform peripherals such as network and management controller can be used to attack the host computer via direct memory access (DMA). DMA-based attacks launched from peripherals are capable of compromising the host without exploiting vulnerabilities present in the operating system running on the host. Therefore they present a highly critical threat to system security and integrity. Unfortunately, to date no OS implements security mechanisms that can detect DMA-based attacks. Furthermore, attacks against memory management units have been demonstrated in the past and therefore cannot be considered trustworthy. We are the first to present a novel method for detecting and preventing DMA-based attacks. Our method is based on modeling the expected memory bus activity and comparing it with the actual activity. We implement BARM, a runtime monitor that permanently monitors bus activity to expose malicious memory access carried out by peripherals. Our evaluation reveals that BARM not only detects and prevents DMA-based attacks but also runs without significant overhead due to the use of commonly available CPU features of the x86 platform.