Addressing Benign and Malicious Crosstalk in Modern System-on-Chips

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the effects of intentional crosstalk noise on modern Multi-Processor System-on-Chips (MPSoCs). We demonstrate the potential for an adversary to inject false data into the communication network of the MPSoC, thereby creating intentional crosstalk scenarios that increase the likelihood of bit errors in other users’ data. This is achieved through a pre-attack reconnaissance phase in which the attacker determines the size of the MPSoC’s communication links. Based on this information, the attacker then issues false packets into the MPSoC’s network to intentionally corrupt users’ data. Our evaluations confirm that the attack can have serious consequences, altering the on-chip communication system of MPSoCs. Additionally, we propose a multi-layer defense mechanism that ensures the proper functioning of the MPSoC in the presence of both benign and malicious crosstalk scenarios. Our experimental results confirm the effectiveness of our proposed method in addressing at least 88% of the crosstalk situations with minimal power and performance overhead compared to alternative solutions.

Keywords

• 3D network-on-chip
• crosstalk
• coupling capacitance
• hardware vulnerability
• coding