Secure, Precise, and Fast Floating-Point Operations on x86 Processors

Floating-point computations introduce several side channels. This paper describes the first solution that closes these side channels while preserving the precision of non-secure executions. Our solution exploits microarchitectural features of the x86 architecture along with novel compilation techniques to provide low overhead.

Because of the details of x86 execution, the evaluation of floating-point side channel defenses is quite involved, but we show that our solution is secure, precise, and fast. Our solution closes more side channels than any prior solution. Despite the added security, our solution does not compromise on the precision of the floating-point operations. Finally, for a set of microkernels, our solution is an order of magnitude more efficient than the previous solution.