MORTIMER: Language Mechanisms and Tools for Run-TIme Memory Access Policy Enforcement

DoD has a critical need for protecting sensitive data to make sure that only the intended, trusted programs or parts of programs can access the data. This protection must be also effective when data is loaded into memory while being processed by software. Lately, the side-channel attacks which are based on information gained from the implementation of a computer system rather than exploiting algorithm weakness  or software bugs became more prevalent those attacks are based gathering information through micro-architectural side-channels.. IAI team proposes to design the MORTIMER system, which offers protection for data and program parts on current and future CPUs and operating systems via non-burdensome, application-specific, programmer-added annotations of the relevant sensitive data and code units, and enables code programmer to define enforceable policies with the high level of granularity provided by offered by the utilized strictly-typed, memory-safe programming language. MORTIMER solution enables programmer-defined policies for memory encryption and governs access to the data/code memory from different locations of the execution code.