An algorithm for detecting contention-based covert timing channels on shared hardware

Abstract

As we increasingly rely on computers to process and manage our personal data, safeguarding sensitive information from malicious hackers is a fast growing concern. Among many forms of information leakage, covert timing channels operate by establishing an illegitimate communication channel between two processes and transmitting information via timing modulation, violating the underlying system's security policy. Recent studies have shown the vulnerability of popular computing environments, such as cloud, to these covert timing channels. In this work, we propose an algorithm to detect the possible presence of covert timing channels on shared hardware that use contention-based patterns for communication. Preliminary experiments demonstrate that our algorithm is able to successfully detect different types of covert timing channels at varying bandwidths, message patterns, and has zero false alarms.