Replication Data for: Partial Key Overwrite Attacks in Microcontrollers: a Survey

NOTE: folder structure is too complex to be uploaded as-is to RDR. Source code is available in the ZIP archive.

Embedded devices can be exposed to a wide range of attacks. Some classes of
attacks can be mitigated using security features or dedicated
countermeasures. Examples include Trusted Execution Environments, and
masking countermeasures against physical side-channel attacks. However, a
system that incorporates such secure components is not automatically a
secure system. Partial Key Overwrite attacks are one class of attacks that
specifically target the interface between different components of the
security system. These attacks may allow an adversary to extract otherwise
protected cryptographic keys through careful manipulation of memory-mapped
registers. So far this powerful class of attacks has received little
attention in the academic literature. In this work, we provide an overview
of known Partial Key Overwrite vulnerabilities and how they were used in
real-world attacks. Additionally, we evaluated 31 common microcontrollers
and embedded microprocessors from eleven distinct vendors and detail our
findings. Based on a first high-level evaluation we selected 15 SoCs and
performed an in-depth evaluation. This evaluation revealed that at least
eight of these SoCs are vulnerable to partial key overwrite attacks.