Information Flow Analysis for VHDL

We describe a fragment of the hardware description language VHDL that is suitable for implementing the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm. We then define an Information Flow analysis as required by the international standard Common Criteria. The goal of the analysis is to identify the entire information flow through the VHDL program. The result of the analysis is presented as a non-transitive directed graph that connects those nodes (representing either variables or signals) where an information flow might occur. We compare our approach to that of Kemmerer and conclude that our approach yields more precise results.

[1]  Flemming Nielson,et al.  Principles of Program Analysis , 1999, Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

[2]  Peter J. Ashenden,et al.  The Designer's Guide to VHDL , 1995 .

[3]  Andrew C. Myers,et al.  Language-based information-flow security , 2003, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[4]  John Rushby,et al.  Noninterference, Transitivity, and Channel-Control Security Policies 1 , 2005 .

[5]  Flemming Nielson,et al.  A Succinct Solver for ALFP , 2002, Nord. J. Comput..

[6]  Steven P. Levitan,et al.  Control / Data-Flow Analysis for VHDL Semantic Extraction , 1998, J. Inf. Sci. Eng..

[7]  Charles Hymans.  Checking Safety Properties of Behavioral VHDL Descriptions by Abstract Interpretation , 2002, SAS.

[8]  Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan,et al.  Structural Operational Semantics for a Portable Subset of Behavioral VHDL-93 , 2001, Formal Methods Syst. Des..

[9]  Flemming Nielson,et al.  The Succinct Solver Suite , 2004, TACAS.

[10]  John Beidler,et al.  Data Structures and Algorithms , 1996, Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering.

[11]  Bryan Weeks,et al.  Hardware Performance Simulations of Round 2 Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithms , 2000, AES Candidate Conference.

[12]  J. Thomas Haigh,et al.  Extending The Non-Interference Version Of MLS For Sat , 1987, 1986 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

[13]  Kees G. W. Goossens.  Reasoning about VHDL using operational and observational semantics , 1995, CHARME.

[14]  Flemming Nielson,et al.  Semantics with applications - a formal introduction , 1992, Wiley professional computing.

[15]  Clark Weissman.  Handbook for the Computer Security Certification of Trusted Systems , 1995 .