Secure and Stateful Power Transitions in Embedded Systems
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Secure and Stateful Power Transitions in Embedded Systems Archanaa S. Krishnan1
· Charles Suslowicz2 · Patrick Schaumont1
Received: 24 April 2020 / Accepted: 6 July 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Power loss occurs in devices with a transient power supply, and it leads to the loss of volatile state information of the device. To protect the state, the device stores it as a checkpoint in non-volatile memory. The checkpoints are used to restore the device to the most recent stored state upon power-up. There are three facets of power transitions—cause, statefulness, and security, out of which the third facet is ignored in current embedded systems research. In this paper, we describe the intersection of two fields, stateful power transitions and secure embedded systems, which has largely been unexplored until now. We study the limitations introduced by the three facets of power transitions of embedded devices. We explore the vulnerabilities introduced by stateful power transitions and propose the Secure Intermittent Computing Protocol to overcome them. We analyze the overhead of each technology required to provide secure and stateful power transition and its effects on the duty cycle of an embedded device. Keywords Secure checkpoints · Intermittent computing · Energy harvesters · Non-volatile memory · Embedded systems
1 Introduction Computers including servers, personal computers (PCs), laptops, and embedded devices run on electric power, which is typically supplied by the grid. Power loss, a fact of life, is a short-term or long-term shortage of power which causes computer shut downs. Upon power loss, the device transitions from ON-state to OFF-sate, losing its volatile computer state. Upon the next power-up, it transitions to ON-state and re-initializes the volatile state; thus, power loss re-initializes the system on every power-up. The transition between ON, OFF, and ON-state is called power transition. The computer copes with power loss by storing checkpoints of the intermediate volatile state in non-volatile Archanaa S. Krishnan
[email protected] Charles Suslowicz [email protected] Patrick Schaumont [email protected] 1
Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA
2
Army Cyber Institute, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY 10666, USA
memory, illustrated in Fig. 1. Non-volatile memory ensures that checkpoints remain persistent across power transitions. Upon power-up, the computer is restored to the most recent checkpointed state and resumes its tasks. In this paper, we focus on the power transitions of a secure embedded system. Energy harvesting technology converts ambient energy to electrical energy, which is sufficient to power resource-constrained embedded devices. Figure 1 illustrates a device powered by a solar energy harvester. Since the availability of solar energy depends on the weather and time of the day, a solar energy harvester is a transient power source. Transient power supplies do not provide continuous pow
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