Arm releases first Morello boards with security-focused Cheri architecture

Arm has sent the first prototypes of its Morello boards to security researchers. They use a new security architecture called Cheri, which focuses specifically on memory security.

Arm writes that it is making the boards available to software developers and security researchers for the first time. Morello is a research program with which Arm wants to investigate the security of chips. It does this together with the University of Cambridge and companies such as Microsoft and Google. The Morello boards are the result of research over the past five years.

Morello consists of a development board with an Armv8.2-A processor using the Cheri architecture. That stands for Capability hardware enhanced RISC instructions. In particular, Cheri protects how pointers work in the chip, for example by limiting how often and in which locations they can access the memory and for which functions it can. Also, with Cheri, the memory is divided into compartments, so that an attacker with a memory attack cannot extract all information from a system. The Cortex cores on the Morello boards are the first pieces of hardware on which that architecture is being field tested.

Arm says that with the new technology it mainly wants to focus on protecting chips against memory attacks. According to Arm, those would be the most common. Morello chips could be widely used in IoT devices in the future, as well as in vehicles or data centers, the company says.