Facebook, Inc.

Vmware, Inc.

Mcafee, Inc.

Other

Networks Associates Technology, Inc.

Oded Horovitz

Carl Alan Waldspurger

Sahil Rihan

Stephen A Weis

Yona Hollander

Xiaoxin Chen

Ophir Rachman

Dmitriy Budko

Pratap Subrahmanyam

Gregory William Dalcher

Wei Xu

Adrian Drzewiecki

Daniel Arai

Bharath Chandramohan

Marios Leventopoulos

Samuel Larsen

Gilad Arie Wolff

Sahil Riihan

Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media can perform verification of a currently stored BMC firmware on a remote access-enabled server based on a BMC security key. It can be determined that the currently stored BMC firmware cannot be verified based on the BMC security key. A replacement BMC firmware can be received over a network connection based on the determination that the currently stored BMC firmware cannot be verified. The currently stored BMC firmware can be replaced with the replacement BMC firmware.

Systems and methods for mitigation of permanent denial of service attacks

A processor cache is logically partitioned into a main partition, located in the cache itself, and an enclave partition, located within an enclave, that is, a hardware-enforced protected region of an address space of a memory. This extends the secure address space usable by and for an application such as a software cryptoprocessor that is to execute only in secure regions of cache or memory.

Method and system for using processor enclaves and cache partitioning to assist a software cryptoprocessor

A system and method of operation exploit the limited associativity of a single cache set to force observable cache evictions and discover conflicts. Loads are issued to input memory addresses, one at a time, until a cache eviction is detected. After observing a cache eviction on a load from an address, that address is added to a data structure representing the current conflict set. The cache is then flushed, and loads are issued to all addresses in the current conflict set, so that all known conflicting addresses are accessed first, ensuring that the next cache miss will occur on a different conflicting address. The process is repeated, issuing loads from all input memory addresses, incrementally finding conflicting addresses, one by one. Memory addresses that conflict in the cache belong to the same partition, whereas memory addresses belonging to different partitions do not conflict.

System and method for partitioning of memory units into non-conflicting sets

An application such as a virtual machine are executed securely using a software-based, full-system emulator within a hardware-protected enclave, such as an SGX enclave. The emulator may thereby be secure even against a malicious underlying host operating system. In some cases, paging is used to allow even a large application may run within a small enclave using paging. Where the application itself uses enclaves, these guest enclaves may themselves be emulated within an emulator enclave such that the guest enclave(s) are nested as sibling enclaves by the emulator.

Method and system for providing secure system execution on hardware supporting secure application execution

An attestation system for asserting and verifying assertions of a known-good state of a computer system is provided. The attestation system allows a challenger and a prover to conduct an attestation so that the challenger can verify an assertion of the prover. To conduct the attestation, the prover sends, as an assertion of its state, a combined measurement of resources along with a constituent measurement of each resource to the challenger. The challenger verifies the assertion by verifying that the asserted constituent measurements represent known-good measurements and verifying that the asserted combined measurement can be generated from the asserted constituent measurements. To verify the asserted constituent measurements, the challenger determines whether each asserted constituent measurement for a resource is a known-good measurement for that resource. To verify the asserted combined measurement, the challenger generates a combined measurement from the asserted constituent measurements received from the prover.

Attestation using a combined measurement and its constituent measurements

Methods and systems for securing sensitive data from security risks associated with direct memory access ('DMA') by input/output ('I/O') devices are provided. An enhanced software cryptoprocessor system secures sensitive data using various techniques, including (1) protecting sensitive data by preventing DMA by an I/O device to the portion of the cache that stores the sensitive data, (2) protecting device data by preventing cross-device access to device data using DMA isolation, and (3) protecting the cache by preventing the pessimistic eviction of cache lines on DMA writes to main memory.

Secure support for I/O in software cryptoprocessor

Security of information&#x2014;both code and data&#x2014;stored in a computer's system memory is provided by an agent loaded into and at run time resident in a CPU cache. Memory writes from the CPU are encrypted by the agent before writing and reads into the CPU are decrypted by the agent before they reach the CPU. The cache-resident agent also optionally validates the encrypted information stored in the system memory. Support for I/O devices and cache protection from unsafe DMA of the cache by devices is also provided.

Software cryptoprocessor

Computer implemented methods, system and apparatus for managing execution of a running-page in a virtual machine include associating an execution trace code with the running page by a security virtual machine. The execution trace code generates a notification upon initiation of the execution of the running page by the virtual machine. The notification is received by the security virtual machine running independent of the virtual machine executing the running-page. The running page associated with the execution trace code is validated by the security virtual machine as authorized for execution. An exception is generated if the running-page is not authorized for execution. The generated exception is to prevent the execution of the running page in the virtual machine.

Managing execution of a running-page in a virtual machine

One embodiment of the present invention is a method of operating a virtualization system, the method including: (a) instantiating a virtualization system on an underlying hardware machine, the virtualization system exposing a virtual machine in which multiple execution contexts of a guest execute; (b) monitoring the execution contexts from the virtualization system; and (c) selectively impeding computational progress of a particular one of the execution contexts.

Impeding progress of malicious guest software

A method is provided for monitoring registered code in a virtual machine of a virtualization system. The method includes instantiating a guest in the virtual machine of the virtualization system and monitoring execution of code registered for monitored execution in an execution context of the guest. The monitoring is performed by the virtualization system and is hidden from computations of the guest.

Monitoring execution of guest code in a virtual machine

A method for monitoring a data structure maintained by guest software within a virtual machine is disclosed. Changes to the contents of the data structure are determined, such as by placing write traces on the memory pages containing the data structure. Also, the method involves determining when memory pages containing the data structure are swapped into and/or out of guest physical memory by the guest software, such as by placing write traces on the memory pages containing the guest page table and detecting changes to the present bit of page table entries involved in mapping virtual addresses for the data structure. Information about the contents of the data structure is retained while memory pages containing the data structure are swapped out of guest physical memory.

Monitoring a data structure in a virtual machine and determining if memory pages containing the data structure are swapped into or out of guest physical memory

A method is provided for executing guest computations in a virtual machine of a virtualization system and forcing execution of registered code into an execution context of the guest. The forcing is performed from the virtualization system based on an execution trigger monitored without reliance on functionality of the guest software.

Forcing registered code into an execution context of guest software

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for virtual patching. Initially, information associated with at least one vulnerability of a computer application is collected. Further, at least one host interface is identified that is capable of being used to access the vulnerability. In use, data sent to the at least one host interface is analyzed to determine whether the data is unwanted, based on the information.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Oded Horovitz