SAFE: A clean-slate architecture for secure systems

Author

Chiricescu, Silviu ; DeHon, Andre ; Demange, D. ; Iyer, Srikrishna ; Kliger, Aleksey ; Morrisett, G. ; Pierce, Benjamin C. ; Reubenstein, Howard ; Smith, J.M. ; Sullivan, Gregory T. ; Thomas, Abu ; Tov, Jesse ; White, Christopher M. ; Wittenberg, David

Author_Institution

BAE Syst., Burlington, MA, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

12-14 Nov. 2013

Firstpage

570

Lastpage

576

Abstract

SAFE is a large-scale, clean-slate co-design project encompassing hardware architecture, programming languages, and operating systems. Funded by DARPA, the goal of SAFE is to create a secure computing system from the ground up. SAFE hardware provides memory safety, dynamic type checking, and native support for dynamic information flow control. The Breeze programming language leverages the security features of the underlying machine, and the “zero kernel” operating system avoids relying on any single privileged component for overall system security. The SAFE project is working towards formally verifying security properties of the runtime software. The SAFE system sets a new high-water mark for system security, allowing secure applications to be built on a solid foundation rather than on the inherently vulnerable conventional platforms available today.

Keywords

formal verification; high level languages; operating system kernels; security of data; watermarking; Breeze programming language; DARPA; SAFE hardware; SAFE project; SAFE system; computing system security; dynamic information flow control; dynamic type checking; hardware architecture; large-scale clean-slate co-design project; memory safety; security properties; watermarking; zero kernel operating system; Computer languages; Hardware; Instruction sets; Logic gates; Operating systems; Runtime; Security;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Technologies for Homeland Security (HST), 2013 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Waltham, MA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-3963-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/THS.2013.6699066

Filename

6699066