The Best Defense is a Good Offense: From Spectre to Rowhammer!
Microarchitectural vulnerabilities such as Spectre and Rowhammer continue to endanger systems, with new variants repeatedly evading existing defenses. In this talk, I will emphasize the need for robust offensive testing to proactively uncover such vulnerabilities in future hardware. First, I will introduce AMuLeT (ASPLOS’25) <https://gururaj-s.github.io/assets/pdf/ASPLOS25_FuTanenbaum.pdf>, an automated framework that detects speculative execution leaks in CPUs at design time. By extending model-based relational testing to simulators like gem5, AMuLeT enables the systematic testing of Spectre defenses. In the first large-scale evaluation of four widely used mitigations, AMuLeT uncovered 3 known and 6 previously unknown vulnerabilities, including the first reported insecurity in SpecLFB (SEC’24). Next, I will present GPUHammer (USENIX Security ’25) <https://gpuhammer.com/>, the first Rowhammer attacks on discrete GPUs. This attack can degrade ML model accuracy from 80% to 0.1%, with a single bit flip in GPU memory, revealing a new class of threats to AI safety and reliability. Finally, I will present QPRAC (HPCA’25) <https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.18861>, a low-overhead Rowhammer defense for future DRAM based on the PRAC framework. Together, these efforts show how rigorous offensive testing can enable robust defenses.
Speaker Biography
Gururaj Saileshwar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, working at the intersection of computer architecture and security. His research spans side-channel attacks, Rowhammer attacks, and security for machine learning systems. His work has been recognized with an IEEE Top Pick in Hardware and Embedded Security, Best Paper Awards at IEEE HPCA 2023 and PETS 2025 (Runner-Up), and an IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mention. His PhD dissertation received the IEEE HOST Best PhD Award and dual Honorable Mentions at the IEEE TCCA/ACM SIGARCH and ACM SIGMICRO Dissertation Awards.