ReFuzz: Reusing Tests for Processor Fuzzing with Contextual Bandits

TL;DR

ReFuzz is an adaptive hardware fuzzing framework that leverages contextual bandits to reuse effective tests from prior processors, enabling efficient detection of vulnerabilities and bugs in modern, complex processor designs.

Contribution

ReFuzz introduces a novel adaptive fuzzing approach that reuses tests across processor designs using contextual bandits, improving vulnerability detection and coverage efficiency.

Findings

Uncovered three new security vulnerabilities.

Detected a functional bug across three processors sharing modules.

Achieved 511x average coverage speedup and 9.33% more coverage.

Abstract

Processor designs rely on iterative modifications and reuse well-established designs. However, this reuse of prior designs also leads to similar vulnerabilities across multiple processors. As processors grow increasingly complex with iterative modifications, efficiently detecting vulnerabilities from modern processors is critical. Inspired by software fuzzing, hardware fuzzing has recently demonstrated its effectiveness in detecting processor vulnerabilities. Yet, to our best knowledge, existing processor fuzzers fuzz each design individually, lacking the capability to understand known vulnerabilities in prior processors to fine-tune fuzzing to identify similar or new variants of vulnerabilities. To address this gap, we present ReFuzz, an adaptive fuzzing framework that leverages contextual bandit to reuse highly effective tests from prior processors to fuzz a processor-under-test (PUT) within a given ISA. By intelligently mutating tests that trigger vulnerabilities in prior processors, ReFuzz effectively detects similar and new variants of vulnerabilities in PUTs. ReFuzz uncovered three new security vulnerabilities and two new functional bugs. ReFuzz detected one vulnerability by reusing a test that triggers a known vulnerability in a prior processor. One functional bug exists across three processors that share design modules. The second bug has two variants. Additionally, ReFuzz reuses highly effective tests to enhance efficiency in coverage, achieving an average 511.23x coverage speedup and up to 9.33% more total coverage, compared to existing fuzzers.