doi.org
Cryptographic Capability Computing
October 2021 • Michael LeMay, Joydeep Rakshit, Sergej Deutsch, David Durham, Santosh Ghosh, Anant Nori, Jayesh Gaur, Andrew Weiler, Salmin Sultana, Karanvir Grewal,…
Capability architectures for memory safety have traditionally required expanding pointers and radically changing microarchitectural structures throughout processors, while only providing superficial hardening. We hence propose Cryptographic Capability Computing (C3) - the first memory safety mechanism that is stateless to avoid requiring extra metadata storage. C3 retains 64-bit pointer sizes providing legacy binary compatibility while imposing minimal touchpoints. Pointers are encrypted to unforgeably (within cry…