[Info-vax] Intel x86-64 Processor Design Security Vulnerability?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2018-01-02, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>
> There's speculation around a potential security vulnerability and 
> related information embargo, involving various Intel x86-64 processors, 
> in the implementations of memory management and speculative execution.
>
> http://pythonsweetness.tumblr.com/post/169166980422/the-mysterious-case-of-the-linux-page-table 
>

Some more reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_page-table_isolation

Of course, VMS hasn't even got as far as implementing KASLR (or even
traditional ASLR) yet...

> https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/12/27/2
> https://www.tugraz.at/en/tu-graz/services/news-stories/planet-research/singleview/article/wenn-rowhammer-nur-noch-einmal-klopft/ 
>

>From the last link:

|When a system is regarded as absolutely safe, our curiosity is awakened,.
|explains Daniel Gruss from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and
|Communication Technology

> Etc.
>
> The issue appears specific to Intel x86-64 designs, and does not arise 
> in the AMD x86-64 designs.
>

If this is what it sounds like, I wonder if a microkernel based operating
system would be more protected against this than a monolithic operating
system would be ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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