Deeply embedded systems powered by microcontrollers are becoming popular with the emergence of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology. However, these devices primarily run C/C
Survey of Control-flow Integrity Techniques for Real-time Embedded Systems
Computing systems, including real-time embedded systems, are becoming increasingly connected to allow for more advanced and safer operation. Such embedded systems are also often resource-constrained, for example, with lower processing capabilities compared to general-purpose computing systems like desktops or servers. With the advent of paradigms such as internet-of-things (IoT), embedded systems in both commercial and industrial contexts are being increasingly interconnected and exposed to the external networks to improve automation and efficiency of operation. However, allowing external interfaces to such embedded systems increases their exposure to attackers. With an increase in attacks against embedded systems ranging from home appliances to industrial control systems operating critical equipment that have real-time requirements, it is imperative that defense mechanisms be created that explicitly consider such resource and real-time constraints. Control-flow integrity (CFI) is a family of defense mechanisms that prevent attackers from modifying the flow of execution. We survey CFI techniques, ranging from the basic to state of the art, that are built for embedded systems and real-time embedded systems and find that there is a dearth, especially for real-time embedded systems, of CFI mechanisms. We then present open challenges to the community to help drive future research in this domain.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2038726
- PAR ID:
- 10402444
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems
- Volume:
- 21
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1539-9087
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 32
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3538275
