Timing Covert Channel Analysis of the VxWorks MILS Embedded Hypervisor under the Common Criteria Security Certification

Virtualization technology is nowadays adopted in security-critical embedded systems to achieve higher performance and more design flexibility. However, it also comes with new security threats, where attackers leverage timing covert channels to exfiltrate sensitive infor- mation from a partition using a trojan. This paper presents a novel approach for the exper- imental assessment of timing covert channels in embedded hypervisors, with a case study on security assessment of a commercial hypervisor product ( Wind River VxWorks MILS ), in cooperation with a licensed laboratory for the Common Criteria security certification. Our ex- perimental analysis shows that it is indeed possible to establish a timing covert channel, and that the approach is useful for system designers for assessing that their configuration is robust against this kind of information leakage.