New Predictor-Based Attacks in Processors

The microarchitectural state held by predictors in modern processors can leak sensitive information. This is the first work to analyze the security of a special type of predictor, the value predictor, and demonstrate new security attacks. The new attacks bypass all the existing predictor defenses which have not yet considered value predictors as sources of vulnerabilities. This work further shows there are many value predictor attack variants, as derived using our new attack model. This paper highlights the importance of security analysis of processor features before they are realized in silicon, so the security is understood at the design time.