Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Other

Microsoft Corporation

Mehmet Iyigun

Yevgeniy Bak

Cenk Ergan

Michael Richard Fortin

Landy Wang

Arun Upadhyaya Kishan

Emily Nicole Wilson

Kirsten Valery Stark

Hari R Pulapaka

Alexander Kirshenbaum

Brian E King

Patrick L Stemen

Jason Lin

Neel K Jain

Vasilios Karagounis

Sushu Zhang

Benjamin M Schultz

Frederick Justus Smith

Eric Bluestein

Robin Andrew Alexander

Andrew M Herron

Stuart Sechrest

Xiaozhong Xing

Jin Lin

Hee Jun Park

Benjamin A Mickle

Kenneth Dean Johnson

David Fields

Kevin Michael Broas

Gregory John Colombo

Niraj Majmudar

Jonathan E Lange

James A Schwartz, Jr

Nicholas Stephen Judge

Amber Tianqi Guo

Andrew D Rogers

Christopher Peter Kleynhans

Jonathan De Marco

Eric J Horvitz

William Jefferson Westerinen

Clark David Nicholson

Neill Michael Clift

John Carroll Gordon

David Hepkin

Tristan Anthony Brown

Pedro Miguel Sequeira De Justo Teixeira

Brandon Allsop

Keith Loren Mange

Daniel Frederick Cuomo, Jr

Sarath Madakasira

Graham Wong

Kyle Thomas Brady

Travis Luke

Paul Bozzay

Matthew John Woolman

Christopher A Meek

Qi Zhang

Johnson T Apacible

Rahul Nair

Bruce Lee Worthington

John Andrew Starks

Mark Yalovsky

Rolf Arnold Ebeling

Lars Reuther

Asela J Gunawardana

Roy Williams

Jon Robert Berry

Giridhar Viswanathan

Thomas Fahrig

Ahmad Bilal

Daniel Vasquez Lopez

Parag Sharma

Youssef M Barakat

John Joseph Richardson

Jeffrey Che Fuller

Paul B Koch

Ankit Srivastava

Michael Bishop Ebersol

Yau Ning Chin

James Andrew Goossen

Stephen E Bensley

Vishal Sharda

Aaron Edward Dietrich

Abhinav Mishra

Wen Jia Liu

Peter Seraphim Ponomarev

Shawn M Woods

Christina L Rhodes

Jason Carl Hendrickson

Ahmed Saruhan Karademir

Axel Rietschin

Prashant Ratanchandani

Ryan M Hurst

Logananth Seetharaman

Russell Charles Hadley

YongKang Zhu

Ian James McCarty

Mahlon David Fields

Mark Allan Bellon

Pavlo Lebedynskiy

A verified stack trace can be generated by utilizing information contained in a shadow stack, such as a hardware protected duplicate stack implemented for malware prevention and computer security. The shadow stack contains return addresses which are obtainable without requiring an unwinding of the traditional call stack. As such, triaging based on return address information can be performed more quickly and more efficiently, and with a reduced utilization of processing resources. Additionally, the generation of a verified stack trace can be performed, with such a verified stack trace containing return addresses that are known to be correct and not corrupted. The return addresses can either be read from the traditional call stack, or derived therefrom, and then verified by comparison to corresponding return addresses from the shadow stack, or they can be read directly from the shadow stack.

Verified stack trace generation and accelerated stack-based analysis with shadow stacks

Techniques for computer memory management are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method includes in response to receiving a request for allocation of memory, determining whether the request is for allocation from a first memory region or a second memory region of the physical memory. The first memory region has first memory subregions of a first size and the second memory region having second memory subregions of a second size larger than the first size of the first memory region. The method further includes in response to determining that the request for allocation of memory is for allocation from the first or second memory region, allocating a portion of the first or second multiple memory subregions of the first or second memory region, respectively, in response to the request.

Computer memory management in computing devices

Securely redirecting a system service routine via a provider service table. A service call provider is loaded within an operating system executing in a lower trust security zone. The service call provider comprises metadata indicating a system service routine to be redirected to the service call provider. Based on the metadata, a provider service table is built within a higher trust security zone. The service table redirects the system service routine to the service call provider. Memory page(s) associated with the provider service table are hardware protected, and a read-only view is exposed to the operating system. The provider service table is associated with a user-mode process. A service call for a particular system service routine is received by the operation system from the user-mode process and, based on the provider service table being associated with the user-mode process, the service call is directed to the service call provider.

Securely redirecting system service routines

Embodiments relate to improving user experiences when executing binary code that has been translated from other binary code. Binary code (instructions) for a source instruction set architecture (ISA) cannot natively execute on a processor that implements a target ISA. The instructions in the source ISA are binary-translated to instructions in the target ISA and are executed on the processor. The overhead of performing binary translation and/or the overhead of executing binary-translated code are compensated for by increasing the speed at which the translated code is executed, relative to non-translated code. Translated code may be executed on hardware that has one or more power-performance parameters of the processor set to increase the performance of the processor with respect to the translated code. The increase in power-performance for translated code may be proportional to the degree of translation overhead.

Performance scaling for binary translation

Handling a memory fault based on detecting whether a memory pointer was invalidated by a pointer authentication (PA) failure. After an access to a memory pointer causes a memory fault, detecting that the memory pointer was invalidated by a PA failure includes creating a new memory pointer by replacing reserved bits of the memory pointer with a default value, and determining that the new memory pointer corresponds to a memory address that falls within executable memory. This determination includes determining that the memory address is within an executable memory page, determining that a call instruction is stored at a prior memory address that immediately precedes the memory address, and/or determining that the memory address corresponds to a code section of an executable file. The PA failure is handled based on logging the PA failure, terminating the application program, and/or resuming execution at an instruction stored at the memory address.

Pointer authentication failure detection

Computing systems, devices, and methods of dynamic image composition for container deployment are disclosed herein. One example technique includes receiving a request for accessing a file from a container process. In response to receiving the request, the technique includes querying a mapping table corresponding to the container process to locate an entry corresponding to a file identifier of the requested file. The entry also includes data identifying a file location on the storage device from which the requested file is accessible. The technique further includes retrieving a copy of the requested file according to the file location identified by the data in the located entry in the mapping table and providing the retrieved copy of the requested file to the container process, thereby allowing the container process to access the requested file.

Dynamic image composition for container deployment

To increase the speed with which a Second Layer Address Table (SLAT) is traversed, memory having the same access permissions is contiguously arranged such that one or more hierarchical levels of the SLAT need not be referenced, thereby resulting in more efficient SLAT traversal. 'Slabs' of memory are established whose memory range is sufficiently large that reference to a hierarchically lower level table can be skipped and a hierarchically higher level table's entries can directly identify relevant memory addresses. Such slabs are aligned to avoid smaller intermediate memory ranges. The loading of code or data into memory is performed based on a next available memory location within a slab having equivalent access permissions, or, if such a slab is not available, or if an existing slab does not have a sufficient quantity of available memory remaining, a new slab with the proper access permissions is established.

Faster computer memory access by reducing SLAT fragmentation

Performing shadow stack functionality for a thread in an audit mode includes initiating execution of a thread at the processor. Execution of the thread includes initiating execution of executable code of an application binary as part of the thread and enabling shadow stack functionality for the thread in an audit mode. Based at least on the execution of the thread in the audit mode, at least a portion of the shadow stack is enabled to be a circular stack. In response to determining that usage of the shadow stack has reached the defined threshold, one or more currently used entries of the shadow stack are overwritten, preventing the shadow stack from overflowing.

Circular shadow stack in audit mode

Techniques of deferred container deployment are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, at a computing device, a container image corresponding to the container. The container image includes a first set of files identified by symbolic links individually directed to a file in the host filesystem on the computing device and a second set of files identified by hard links. The method also includes in response to receiving the container image, at the computing device, storing the received container image in a folder of the host filesystem on the computing device without resolving the symbolic links of the first set of the files until runtime of the requested container.

Deferred path resolution during container deployment

Dynamically overriding a function based on a capability set. A computer system reads a portion of an executable image file. The portion includes a first memory address corresponding to a first callee function implementation. The first memory address was inserted into the portion by a compiler toolchain. Based on extensible metadata included in the executable image file, and based on a capability set that is specific to the computer system, the computer system determines a second memory address corresponding to a second callee function implementation. Before execution of the portion, the computer system modifies the portion to replace the first memory address with the second memory address.

Dynamically overriding a function based on a capability set

Enforcing shadow stack violations at module granularity, rather than at thread or process granularity. An exception is processed during execution of a thread based on code of an application binary, which is enabled for shadow stack enforcement, that calls an external module. The exception results from a mismatch between a return address popped from the thread's call stack and a return address popped from the thread's shadow stack. Processing the exception includes determining that the exception resulted from execution of an instruction in the external module, and determining whether or not the external module is enabled for shadow stack enforcement. Based at least on these determinations, execution of the thread is terminated when the external module is enabled for shadow stack enforcement, or the thread is permitted to continue executing when the external module is not enabled for shadow stack enforcement.

Shadow stack violation enforcement at module granularity

One example technique includes receiving a request for accessing a file from a container process. In response to receiving the request, the technique includes querying a mapping table corresponding to the container process to locate an entry corresponding to a file identifier of the requested file. The entry also includes data identifying a file location on the storage device from which the requested file is accessible. The technique further includes retrieving a copy of the requested file according to the file location identified by the data in the located entry in the mapping table and providing the retrieved copy of the requested file to the container process, thereby allowing the container process to access the requested file.

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Mehmet Iyigun