Room 206 (2nd floor, badged access)
21 May 2026 - 14h00
Compiler Back-end Modification for Security : a SCA Countermeasure Case Study
by Clara Bourgeais from Univ. Grenoble Alpes Grenoble INP, LCIS
invited by Bruno FERRES
21 May 2026 - 14h00
Compiler Back-end Modification for Security : a SCA Countermeasure Case Study
by Clara Bourgeais from Univ. Grenoble Alpes Grenoble INP, LCIS
invited by Bruno FERRES
Abstract: Secure compilation is becoming an essential component of security.
However, research in this field has primarily focused on countermeasures in the front-end and middle-end of compilers, not their back-end.
Nevertheless, we believe that the puzzle of secure compilation cannot be solved without an in-depth study of back-end countermeasures.
Indeed, since the back-end facilitates the conversion of an intermediate representation into machine language, many machine-specific transformations can also occur there.
However, this is a relatively under-researched field, due to a lack of methods for extracting high-level information from machine language level.
This presentation covers the study of low-level compilation countermeasures.
We will discuss Tracing LLVM, a tool developed by Sébastien Michelland that allows—among other things—the tracing of data from source code to the compiler back-end.
We will also see how this tool has been extended to continue tracing even after the devastating pass of the register allocator (which we will happily present).
Furthermore, we will round out this presentation with a case study illustrating the value of back-end countermeasures.
This case will concern information leakage via side channels of data passing through a system bus.
