Lightweight Hardware Return Address and Stack Frame Tracking to Prevent Function Return Address Attack

Supporting security features in hardware is relatively recent. Adding extra protection at the architectural-level is effective and can improve the existing software protection. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and considerations of adding a security enhancement inside hardware. We also demonstrated a light-weight architecture design change under the constraint to prevent from function return address attack by tracking the active return address and stack frame pointer, and raising a warning upon the return of a function if the return address has been modified. The idea is as effective as other hardware solutions but significantly reduces the hardware changes and performance overhead, and is transparent to software. The preliminary result showed 89% of the return address is covered by our heuristic tracking method.