EU - FSSec - Foundations for Sustainable Security

Security and efficiency are often seen as a conflict. IT already consumes 11% of electricity globally, with a steep upwards trend. Resource sharing increases efficiency but introduces information leakage vulnerabilities, such as Meltdown and Spectre. Reducing reliability margins also increases efficiency but introduces fault attacks, such as Rowhammer and Plundervolt. This reveals a fundamental problem in current systems: Reliability mechanisms are not designed with adversaries in mind. Security is then patched on top of reliability mechanisms, incurring additional energy costs. We will overcome the conflict between security and efficiency with novel foundations to make security sustainable and use security to increase efficiency. We will research how to measure the efficiency of security, design principled and efficient security mechanisms, utilize security to increase efficiency, secure microarchitectural optimizations, and secure lightweight isolation.