Using Government drawings, specifications, or other data included in this document for any purpose other than Government procurement does not in any way obligate the U.S. Government. The fact that the Government formulated or supplied the drawings, specifications, or other data does not license the holder or any other person or corporation; or convey any rights or permission to manufacture, use, or sell any patented invention that may relate to them. This report is the result of contracted fundamental research deemed exempt from public affairs security and policy review in accordance with SAF/AQR memorandum dated 10 Dec 08 and AFRL/CA policy clarification memorandum dated 16 Jan 09. This report is available to the general public, including foreign nationals. Copies may be obtained from the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) (http://www.dtic.mil).
The DOD community is interested in multicore systemon-a-chip architectures to host Multi-Level Secure (MLS) command and control systems. These systems must be secure and resilient, not unlike hardened real-time control systems used in critical infrastructures. In this paper we discuss how Smart Grid features will fundamentally change our power grid and communication infrastructures, and suggest that resilient multicore systems-on-a-chip may offer a solution to the increased complexity of our critical infrastructure control systems, if those architectures can be suitably hardened. We showcase two vulnerabilities in the Cell Broadband Engine and show how those vulnerabilities can be mitigated using changes to the Linux kernel. Similar problems can been found in the Intel Nehalem architecture and the Freescale P4080 architecture. We conclude that multicore architectures are only suitable for MLS and resilient real-time controls if, and only if, designers pay close attention to mitigating the inherent firmware and software vulnerabilities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.