Paper 2019/301 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2019/301 ↗

Safe Compilation for Encrypted Computing

Abstract

Encrypted computing is an emerging field in which inputs, outputs and intermediates are maintained in encrypted form in a processor, conferring security on user data against the operator and operating system as adversaries, which run unencrypted in the same machine. Systems that pass encrypted addresses to memory without decryption close a major attack vector and allow off-the-shelf memory to be used. But that makes memory unreliable from the program's perspective, as the many different encryptions of a plaintext address access different memory locations that the program sees as the same with varying contents. A clever `obfuscating' compiler solves the problem, opening up the field.