Are Timing-Based Side-Channel Attacks Feasible in Shared, Modern Computing Hardware?

There exist various vulnerabilities in computing hardware that adversaries can exploit to mount attacks against the users of such hardware. Microarchitectural Attacks, the result of these vulnerabilities, take advantage of Microarchitectural performance of processor implementations, revealing hidden computing process. Leveraging Microarchitectural resources, adversaries can potentially launch Timing-Based Side-Channel Attacks in order to leak information via timing. In view of these security threats against computing hardware, we analyse current attacks that take advantage of Microarchitectural elements in shared computing hardware. Our analysis focuses only on Timing-Based Side-Channel Attacks against the components of modern PC platforms - with references being made also to other platforms when relevant - as opposed to any other variations of Side-Channel Attacks which have a broad application range. To this end, we analyse Timing Attacks performed against processor and cache components, again with references to other components when appropriate

Ultrafast transient gain in Ge/SiGe quantum wells

The ultrafast carrier dynamics of Ge/SiGe quantum wells on Si substrate is investigated by pump-probe spectroscopy. Spectrally tunable 80 fs pulses emitted by an opto-parametric amplifier are used to excite the sample and a white-light supercontinuum generated from a 1 kHz Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier system is used to probe the sample transmission. Pronounced nonequilibrium effects are observed in the relaxation dynamics. The pump energy dependence of these effects is discussed. If the sample is excited under close-to-resonant pumping conditions, transient gain is observed. The findings are explained using a microscopic many-body theory