octopus/README.md

OCTOPUS
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Samuel AUBERTIN - EURECOM - 2022

![SPECTRE Octopus Logo](logo.png "SPECTRE Octopus Logo")

**OCTOPUS** is a [Spectre v2](https://spectreattack.com/spectre.pdf) (_Branch Target Injection_) compiler flag tester for [CVE 2017-5715](https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-5715).

It measures the success rate of the same attack using different compilers:

- GCC
- CLANG 

And compilation/linking flags such as:

- Optimisation levels (```-O```)
- Static linking
- RETPOLINE

## Dependencies

- ```clang```
- ```gcc```
- ```sftp```
- ```uuid```
- The libC static symbols ```glibc-static```

## Execution

```make```

## Results aggregation

Results are automatically uploaded to a server with ```sftp``` using a dedicated account.

Here is an exhaustive list of the data sent:
- CPU model name and microcode version.
- Kernel version and compilation date.
- The kernel compilation flag ```CONFIG_RETPOLINE```.
- GCC and clang versions.
- The list of mitigations enabled at runtime.
- The cache timings of the processor computed by the ```calibrate_threshold()``` function.
- Each spectre execution success rate.

**NONE** of this data will be used for anyhting else except this experiment.

## Sources

- [ErikAugust gist](https://gist.github.com/ErikAugust/724d4a969fb2c6ae1bbd7b2a9e3d4bb6)
- [genua GmbH PoC](https://github.com/genua/meltdown)