Security in MPSoCs: a NoC firewall and an evaluation frameworkSecurity in MPSoCs: a NoC firewall and an evaluation framework Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2015-11-122015enIn multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC), a CPU can access physical resources, such as on-chip memory or I/O devices. Along with normal requests, malevolent ones, generated by malicious processes running in one or more CPUs, could occur. A protection mechanism is therefore required to prevent injection of malicious instructions or data across the system. We propose a self-contained Network-on-Chip (NoC) firewall at the network interface (NI) layer which, by checking the physical address against a set of rules, rejects untrusted CPU requests to the onchip memory, thus protecting all legitimate processes running in a multicore SoC. To sustain high performance, we implement the firewall in hardware, with rule-checking performed at segmentlevel based on deny rules. Furthermore, to evaluate its impact, we develop a novel framework on top of gem5 simulation environment, coupling ARM technology and an instance of a commercial point-to-point interconnect from STMicroelectronics (STNoC). Simulation tests include scenarios in which legitimate and malicious processes, running in different CPUs, request access to shared memory. Our results indicate that a firewall implementation at the NI can have a positive effect on network performance by reducing both end-to-end network delay and power consumption. We also show that our coarse-grain firewall can prevent saturation of the on-chip network and performs better than fine-grain alternatives that perform rule checking at page-level. Simulation results are accompanied with field measurements performed on a Zedboard platform running Linux, whereas the NoC Firewall is implemented as a reconfigurable, memory-mapped device on top of AMBA AXI4 interconnect fabric.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems3481344-1357 Grammatikakis Miltos D. Papadimitriou Kyprianos Παπαδημητριου Κυπριανος Petrakis Polydoros Papagrigoriou Antonis Kornaros Georgios Κορναρος Γεωργιος Christoforakis Ioannis Tomoutzoglou Othon Tsamis George Coppola Marcello Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer privacy Computer system security Computer systems--Security measures Computers--Security measures Electronic digital computers--Security measures Security of computer systems computer security computer privacy computer system security computer systems security measures computers security measures electronic digital computers security measures security of computer systems