RESEARCH

Papers & Evidence

Read our technical papers and experimental results detailing the microvisor design and evaluation.

Publications

ZMatrix: A Proof-Oriented Microvisor for OS Security
Whitepaper • 2024
PDF

This paper presents the formal design of ZMatrix, a microvisor that enforces security invariants below the operating system kernel. We detail the architecture, prove key correctness properties, and demonstrate how hardware virtualization can be used to create an immutable trust boundary.

Formal MethodsHypervisor SecurityTheorem Proving
Performance Analysis of Hardware-Mediated Syscall Interposition
Technical Report • 2024
PDF

We measure the overhead of hardware-assisted mediation across diverse workloads. Results show sub-5% impact on real-world applications, with syscall interposition adding less than 200ns per call.

BenchmarkingPerformanceVT-x/AMD-V
Formally Verified Isolation Domains in Bare-Metal Environments
Conference Paper • IEEE S&P 2024
PDF

A formal treatment of process isolation using extended page tables. We prove non-interference properties and show that, under the hardware model, processes cannot observe or influence each other's execution—even with kernel-level privileges.

Formal VerificationMemory IsolationEPT/NPT

Benchmarks & Evaluation

SPEC CPU2017
Integer & floating-point workloads
SPECint-2.1%
SPECfp-1.8%

Negligible overhead on compute-intensive workloads. The microvisor's mediation path is optimized to avoid unnecessary exits.

Apache Benchmark (ab)
Web server throughput
Requests/sec-4.2%
P99 Latency+180μs

Syscall-heavy workloads see modest overhead. Each mediated call adds ~170ns on average.

Redis Benchmark
In-memory database ops
GET ops/sec-3.1%
SET ops/sec-3.5%

High-frequency operations remain fast. Hardware-assisted checks avoid software instrumentation costs.

Container Orchestration
Kubernetes pod scheduling
Pod start time-2.8%
Throughput-1.9%

ZMatrix adds per-container isolation without disrupting orchestration. Policy enforcement scales linearly.

Technical Documentation

Policy Language Reference

Complete specification of the ZMatrix policy DSL, including syntax, semantics, and compiler internals.

Integration Guide

Step-by-step instructions for deploying ZMatrix on bare-metal servers, VMs, and container hosts.

Formal Proofs

Coq and Isabelle/HOL proofs for core security properties: isolation, non-interference, and integrity.

API Reference

Low-level API documentation for runtime introspection, policy queries, and attestation endpoints.

Open Research Collaboration

We welcome collaboration with academic institutions and security researchers. If you're interested in formal verification, OS security, or hardware-assisted isolation, reach out to discuss potential projects.