Verifying DRAM Addressing in Software

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to reliably verifying DRAM addressing functions and function components from software. We perform the first systematic analysis of 5 DRAM function reverse-engineering tools on 2 different DDR3, 4 DDR4, and 4 DDR5 system configurations, revealing a significant variance in the success rate of these tools, from 0% to 92.9%. We discover the previously unknown rank selection side channel and reverse engineer its function on two DDR4 and two DDR5 systems. These results enable novel DDR5 row-conflict side-channel attacks, which we demonstrate in two scenarios: First, we evaluate the DDR5 row-conflict side channel in a covert channel with 1.39 Mbit/s. Second, we evaluate the channel in a website fingerprinting attack with an F1 score of 84% on DDR4 and 74% on DDR5.

Mehr zum Titel

Titel Verifying DRAM Addressing in Software
Medien 30th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS)
Verfasser Martin Heckel, Prof. Dr. Florian Adamsky, Jonas Juffinger, Fabian Rauscher, Prof. Dr. Daniel Gruss
Veröffentlichungsdatum 22.06.2025
Zitation Heckel, Martin; Adamsky, Florian; Juffinger, Jonas; Rauscher, Fabian; Gruss, Daniel (2025): Verifying DRAM Addressing in Software. 30th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS).