Modern Hardware Security: A Review of Attacks and Countermeasures

Abstract: With the exponential rise in the use of cloud services, smart devices, and IoT devices, advanced cyber attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous. Furthermore, the rapid evolution of computing architectures and memory technologies has created an urgent need to understand and address hardware security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we review the current state of vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies in contemporary computing systems. We discuss cache side-channel attacks (including Spectre and Meltdown), power side-channel attacks (such as Simple Power Analysis, Differential Power Analysis, Correlation Power Analysis, and Template Attacks), and advanced techniques like Voltage Glitching and Electromagnetic Analysis to help understand and build robust cybersecurity defense systems and guide further research. We also examine memory encryption, focusing on confidentiality, granularity, key management, masking, and re-keying strategies. Additionally, we cover Cryptographic Instruction Set Architectures, Secure Boot, Root of Trust mechanisms, Physical Unclonable Functions, and hardware fault injection techniques. The paper concludes with an analysis of the RISC-V architecture's unique security challenges. The comprehensive analysis presented in this paper is essential for building resilient hardware security solutions that can protect against both current and emerging threats in an increasingly challenging security landscape.