Simulating Modern CPU Vulnerabilities on a 5-stage MIPS Pipeline Using Node-RED

Abstract

This paper proposes a simulation of the 5-stage pipelined MIPS processor using Node-RED and illustrates the basic effects of modern CPU vulnerabilities. Demonstrated in this study are Spectre vulnerability attack and load value injection (LVI) transient-execution attack. The storing of secret data within the cache is shown for Spectre, and through the use of an attacker’s injected page number after a page fault has occurred, we demonstrate LVI’s ability to access the host secrets via simulated memory hierarchy. The persistence of the secret data in the cache can also be observed in the case of both attacks. The characteristics of such security vulnerabilities are successfully simulated with the proposed Node-RED-based processor simulator.