CRJan 18, 2022
Challenges of Return-Oriented-Programming on the Xtensa Hardware ArchitectureKai Lehniger, Marcin J. Aftowicz, Peter Langendörfer et al.
This paper shows how the Xtensa architecture can be attacked with Return-Oriented-Programming (ROP). The presented techniques include possibilities for both supported Application Binary Interfaces (ABIs). Especially for the windowed ABI a powerful mechanism is presented that not only allows to jump to gadgets but also to manipulate registers without relying on specific gadgets. This paper purely focuses on how the properties of the architecture itself can be exploited to chain gadgets and not on specific attacks or a gadget catalog.
CRMay 21, 2021
Resilience in the Cyber World: Definitions, Features and ModelsElisabeth Vogel, Zoya Dyka, Dan Klann et al.
Resilience is a feature that is gaining more and more attention in computer science and computer engineering. However, the definition of resilience for the cyber landscape, especially embedded systems, is not yet clear. This paper discusses definitions of different authors, years and different application areas the field of computer science/computer engineering. We identify the core statements that are more or less common to the majority of the definitions and based on this we give a holistic definition using attributes for (cyber-) resilience. In order to pave a way towards resilience-engineering we discuss a theoretical model of the life cycle of a (cyber-) resilient system that consists of key actions presented in the literature. We adapt this model for embedded (cyber-) resilient systems.