Embedding Program Code Integrity Monitoring in Application-specific Instruction Set Processors

Program code in a computer system can be altered either by malicious security attacks or by various faults in microprocessors. In this work, we present a generalized methodology for monitoring code integrity at run-time in applicationspecific instruction set processors (ASIPs). We embed monitoring mechanisms in an ASIP design process. Thus the processor is augmented with a hardware monitor automatically. Experimental results show that our microarchitectural support can detect program code integrity compromises with small area overhead and little performance degradation.