'The danger of sleeping', an exploration of security in non-volatile processors

As the Internet of Things (IoT) gravitates towards small sensors and connected devices in all areas of our everyday lives, ultra low power computation has taken center stage as an important factor in realizing this goal. While power-sipping architectures have been designed, battery technology struggled to keep up, both in size and weight, adding unnecessary bulk to current generation IoT implementations. Fortunately, non-volatile processors (NVPs) have been proposed to bridge the gap between low power architectures and respond to the issue of unstable power supplies. Meanwhile, the non-volatile nature of the processor introduces a multitude of heretofore unseen security issues not present in current volatile architectures. This paper explores the landscape of current NVP architectures and the security areas that should be addressed before NVPs are selected as the platform of choice for low power IoT applications. Four security threats related to NVP's non-volatility, checkpoint system, timer and power are examined. The paper furthermore proposes three strategies to enhance NVP security, including secure checkpoint, voltage logging, and arrhythmic heartbeats and amnesia avoidance.