Green Hills Software, Inc.

Nvidia Corporation

Daniel Jonathan Hettena

David Noah Kleidermacher

Daniel D O'Dowd

Thomas Cantrell

Dennis Kou

Yogesh Kini

Amit Rao

Ashok Kelur

Aingarathasan Paramakuru

Kathleen E Danielson

Vladislav Buzov

Debalina Bhattacharjee

Sharan Ashwathnarayan

Frank John Banul, Iv

Alok Parikh

Apparatus, systems, and techniques to share memory. In at least one embodiment, a processor comprises one or more circuits to allocate memory to at least two heterogeneous processing cores in response to performing one or more instructions associated with one or more application programming interfaces based, at least in part, on one or more attributes associated with the at least two heterogeneous processing cores.

Resource sharing by two or more heterogeneous processing cores

In certain embodiments, an information obfuscation service may be incorporated directly into the main applications processor of a portable computing device such that the applications processor and its relevant storage peripherals may be securely shared via a virtualization firmware module, avoiding the use of specialized hardware or major modifications of the operating system. The virtualizing and obfuscating storage firmware module may enable a much higher level of assurance in information-at-rest protection while using only the memory protection and privilege mode facilities inherent in common portable device applications microprocessors. The virtualizing and obfuscating storage firmware may interpose storage accesses originating from the operating system. This interposition may be performed seamlessly, without explicit knowledge of the operating system.

Single-chip virtualizing and obfuscating storage system for portable computing devices

Certain embodiments employ an 'out-of-band' mechanism to remove the physical controls for activating input peripherals from a portable device operating system and instead controlled by a separate peripheral control domain, isolated from the operating system domain by a machine virtualization/isolation technology. No additional hardware may be required. An adjunct I/O virtualization mechanism may also be included to abstract the guarded input peripheral interfaces, such that all attempts to turn them on from within the operating system are automatically redirected by the I/O virtualization mechanism to the peripheral control domain. The peripheral control domain may then conduct a policy-driven decision process to either allow, disallow, or request manual/explicit authorization of an access attempts. Physical access may be performed within the peripheral control domain. Because the access control and physical activation of input peripherals occur out-of-band from the operating system, these security-critical operations may be immune to vulnerabilities in the portable operating system.

Out-of-band spy detection and prevention for portable wireless systems

In certain embodiments, virtualization mechanisms used to defend against spying can also be used by attackers as a means to execute spying attacks more effectively. In certain embodiments, attack methods may use the virtualization mechanisms to surreptitiously activate input peripherals without the user's knowledge or authorization. In certain embodiments, a virtualized network interface may be employed in which all network traffic transiting a portable wireless system is routed through a remote control component within a peripheral control domain. The remote control component may be used by an attacker to communicate remotely with the portable device to send it peripheral activation commands. The remote control component can then activate peripherals via the peripheral access module without the user's or general-purpose operating system's knowledge or authorization. All other network traffic may be passed through as normal and expected to the general-purpose operating system.

Executing a remote control command to activate one or more peripheral of a mobile device in a peripheral control domain

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Princeton, NJ, United States of America

Daniel Jonathan Hettena