Abstract:

Abstract: Computer security is often defined as a problem originating in software and to be solved by software. This talk motivates the role that computer architecture must play in the security of current and emerging systems, and that security is a full system problem. I will define this role spanning three primary directions: (1) understanding vulnerabilities exposed by the architecture; (2) Next generation architectures that are resilient to attacks; and (3) Architecture support for software security.  I will overview these three directions with examples from our recent works in new variants of Speculation attacks (Spectre and Meltdown), defenses against these attacks, and support for hardware malware detection.

Biography: 

Nael Abu-Ghazaleh is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering as well as the Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments at the University of California, Riverside. He also serves as the director for the Computer Engineering Program. His research is in architecture support for computer system security, high performance computing, and networked and distributed computing. He has published over 150 papers in these areas, several of which have been recognized with best paper awards or nominations. His hardware security research has resulted in the discovery of several new attacks that have been disclosed to companies including Intel, AMD, ARM and Nvidia, and which have been reported on widely in technical news outlets.