Secure Code Execution: A Generic PUF-Driven System Architecture

In his invited talk, joint between CHES 2016 and CRYPTO 2016 on the Future of Embedded Security, Paul Kocher suggested to move the security into chips because hardware is the lowest level and thus security can not be compromized by a lower layer. In this paper, we propose a generic PUF-driven secure code execution architecture that employs instruction-level code encryption. Our design foresees a tight integration of a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) and the decryption of encrypted program code directly inside the processor’s instruction pipeline to avert revealing keys or decrypted code in externally accessible registers or memory. The architecture prevents code-injection by executing only code encrypted for individual target CPUs, has an adaptable impact on performance, and requires only minor changes to the software development process. Our PUF-based code encryption defends also from reverse engineering attempts and enforces IP protection. A proof-of-concept implementation demonstrates the feasibility of our proposed architecture.