DRAM is the most prevalent memory technology used in laptops, mobile phones, workstations and servers. As such, its security is paramount, yet DRAM attacks remain as viable as ever despite many attempts to resolve its security problems: as an example, recent work has shown that modern DRAM remains vulnerable to Rowhammer, and in fact, newer chips are even more vulnerable than older ones. DRAM is also plagued by additional forms of attack including side-channel, Denial-of-Service (DoS) and cold-boot attacks.
DRAM security defenses are now at an impasse: the research community’s proposals do not take the practical constraints of DRAM devices into consideration while the industry is adopting obscure and ineffective remedies. There are huge ongoing efforts in industry to design safer and more reliable DRAM. Unfortunately, most of these efforts receive little input from the academic community. The goal of this workshop is to bridge these communities and to seek contributions from both academia and industry on the broad topic of DRAM security.
MAD: Memory Allocation meets Software Diversity Manuel Wiesinger, Daniel Dorfmeister, and Stefan Brunthaler Paper, Slides, Video