Verified Software Security Down to Gates

Explore a keynote address from the Conference on Computer-Aided Verification (CAV'23) delivered by Caroline Trippel from Stanford University. Delve into the critical role of hardware-software contracts in high-assurance computer systems design and their importance in software tools for identifying and fixing hardware-related bugs. Examine the challenges of guaranteeing microarchitectural compliance with these contracts, particularly for evolving security contracts. Discover a novel approach to synthesizing hardware-software contracts from advanced processor implementations. Learn about methods for synthesizing security contracts from Verilog processor specifications, designing contract-parameterized compiler approaches for vulnerability detection and repair, and updating hardware microarchitectures to support scalable verification and efficient security-hardened programs. Conclude by considering the remaining challenges in achieving verified software security down to the gate level.

CAV'23 Keynote Caroline Trippel, Stanford University: Verified Software Security Down to Gates