Microsoft technology licensing, llc (20250111048). DETECTING AND MITIGATING MEMORY ATTACKS
DETECTING AND MITIGATING MEMORY ATTACKS
Organization Name
microsoft technology licensing, llc
Inventor(s)
Ishwar Agarwal of Redmond WA US
Stefan Saroiu of Redmond WA US
Alastair Wolman of Seattle WA US
Daniel Sebastian Berger of Seattle WA US
DETECTING AND MITIGATING MEMORY ATTACKS
This abstract first appeared for US patent application 20250111048 titled 'DETECTING AND MITIGATING MEMORY ATTACKS
Original Abstract Submitted
the present disclosure relates to systems and methods implemented on a memory controller for detecting and mitigating memory attacks (e.g., row hammer attacks). for example, a memory controller may track activations of row addresses within a memory hardware (e.g., a dram device) and determine whether a pattern of activations is indicative of a row hammer attack. this is determined using a counting mode for corresponding memory sub-banks. where a likely row hammer attack is detected, the memory controller may activate a sampling mode (rather than the counting mode) for a particular sub-bank to identify which of the row addresses should be refreshed on the memory hardware. the implementations described herein provide a low computational cost alternative to heavy-handed detection mechanisms that require access to significant computing resources to accurately detect and mitigate row hammer attacks.