Intel Corporation

Sergej Deutsch

David M Durham

Karanvir S Grewal

Michael E Kounavis

Michael Lemay

Santosh Ghosh

Siddhartha Chhabra

Rajat Agarwal

Salmin Sultana

Michael D LeMay

Saeedeh Komijani

Ioannis T Schoinas

Amitabh Das

Wenjie Xiong

Sreenivas Subramoney

Wei Wu

Jayesh Gaur

Alpa T Narendra Trivedi

Abhishek Basak

Anant V Nori

Joseph Frank Cihula

Andrew James Weiler

Ravi L Sahita

Men Long

Stanislav Shwartsman

Dan Baum

Erdem Aktas

Kai Cong

Christoph Dobraunig

Hans Goran Liljestrand

Krystian Matusiewicz

Ken Grewal

Techniques for cryptographic computing isolation are described. A processor includes circuitry to be coupled to memory configured to store one or more instructions. The circuitry is to execute the one or more instructions to instantiate a first process based on an application. To instantiate the first process is to include creating a context table to be used by the first process, identifying a software component to be invoked during the first process, encrypting the software component using a first cryptographic key, and creating a first entry in the context table. The first entry is to include first context information identifying the encrypted software component and second context information representing the first cryptographic key. In more specific embodiments, third context information representing a first load address of the encrypted software component is stored in the first entry of the context table.

Cryptographic computing isolation for multi-tenancy and secure software components

Technologies provide domain isolation using encoded pointers to data and code. A system may be configured for decoding an encoded pointer to obtain a linear address of an encrypted code block of a first software component in memory. The first software component shares a linear address space of the memory with a plurality of software components. A processor uses the linear address to access the encrypted code block, determines a relative position of the encrypted code block within a memory slot of the linear address space, and decrypts the encrypted code block to generate a decrypted code block using a code key and a code tweak. The code tweak includes a relative position of the encrypted code block in the address space and domain metadata that uniquely identifies the software component. In some scenarios, the software component may be position independent code and may be relocatable to different address spaces.

Stateless and low-overhead domain isolation using cryptographic computing

A processor, a system, a machine readable medium, and a method. The processor comprises first circuitry to: encrypt a first code image using a first code key; load the encrypted first code image into a memory area allocated in memory for the first code image by an operating system miming on the processor; and send to the operating system a substitute key that corresponds to the first code key, wherein the first code key is concealed from the operating system; and an instruction cache including control circuitry; and second circuitry coupled to the instruction cache, the second circuitry to: receive the substitute key from the operating system; in response to a first request from the operating system to execute the first code image to instantiate a first process, perform a first cryptographic function using a hardware key to generate the first code key from the substitute key; and program the control circuitry of the instruction cache with the first code key to enable the first code image to be decrypted using the first code key.

Cryptographic computing in multitenant environments

The technology described herein includes a first plurality of bijection diffusion function circuits to diffuse data bits into diffused data bits and store the diffused data bits into a memory; an error correcting code (ECC) generation circuit to generate ECC bits for the data bits; and a second plurality of bijection diffusion function circuits to diffuse the ECC bits into diffused ECC bits and store the diffused ECC bits into the memory.

Message authentication Galois integrity and correction (MAGIC) for lightweight row hammer mitigation

In one example, a system for managing encrypted memory comprises a processor to store a first MAC based on data stored in system memory in response to a write operation to the system memory. The processor can also detect a read operation corresponding to the data stored in the system memory, calculate a second MAC based on the data retrieved from the system memory, determine that the second MAC does not match the first MAC, and recalculate the second MAC with a correction operation, wherein the correction operation comprises an XOR operation based on the data retrieved from the system memory and a replacement value for a device of the system memory. Furthermore, the processor can decrypt the data stored in the system memory in response to detecting the recalculated second MAC matches the first MAC and transmit the decrypted data to cache thereby correcting memory errors.

Cryptographic system memory management

A processor is to execute a first instruction to perform a simulated return in a program from a callee function to a caller function based on a first input stack pointer encoded with a first security context of a first callee stack frame. To perform the simulated return is to include generating a first simulated stack pointer to the caller stack frame. The processor is further to, in response to identifying an exception handler in the first caller function, execute a second instruction to perform a simulated call based on a second input stack pointer encoded with a second security context of the caller stack frame. To perform the simulated call is to include generating a second simulated stack pointer to a new stack frame containing an encrypted instruction pointer associated with the exception handler. The second simulated stack pointer is to be encoded with a new security context.

Updating encrypted security context in stack pointers for exception handling and tight bounding of on-stack arguments

The technology disclosed herein comprises a processor; a memory to store data and a plurality of error correcting code (ECC) bits associated with the data; and a memory controller coupled to the memory, the memory controller to receive a write request from the processor and, when an access control field is selected in the write request, perform an exclusive OR (XOR) operation on the plurality of ECC bits and a fixed encoding pattern to generate a plurality of encoded ECC bits and store the data and the plurality of encoded ECC bits in the memory.

Efficient security metadata encoding in error correcting code (ECC) memory without dedicated ECC bits

Technologies disclosed herein provide cryptographic computing. An example method comprises executing a first instruction of a first software entity to receive a first input operand indicating a first key associated with a first memory compartment of a plurality of memory compartments stored in a first memory unit, and execute a cryptographic algorithm in a core of a processor to compute first encrypted contents based at least in part on the first key. Subsequent to computing the first encrypted contents in the core, the first encrypted contents are stored at a memory location in the first memory compartment of the first memory unit. More specific embodiments include, prior to storing the first encrypted contents at the memory location in the first memory compartment and subsequent to computing the first encrypted contents in the core, moving the first encrypted contents into a level one (L1) cache outside a boundary of the core.

Cryptographic isolation of memory compartments in a computing environment

The technology disclosed herein includes a memory to store a plurality of pages, a page of the plurality of pages configured as one of a trusted execution environment (TEE) configuration and a non-TEE configuration, and a memory controller to attempt to access the page using a memory address and the TEE configuration and generate a first error correcting code (ECC); and when data for the first ECC is at least one of correct and correctable by ECC for the attempt to access the page using the TEE configuration, attempt to access the page using the memory address and the non-TEE configuration and generate a second ECC, and when data the second ECC is at least one of correct and correctable by ECC for the attempt to access the page using the non-TEE configuration, store the memory address as an unknown cacheline address.

Secure error correcting code (ECC) trust execution environment (TEE) configuration metadata encoding

A method comprises generating, for a cacheline, a first tag and a second tag, the first tag and the second tag generated as a function of user data stored and metadata in the cacheline stored in a first memory device, and a multiplication parameter derived from a secret key, storing the user data, the metadata, the first tag and the second tag in the first cacheline of the first memory device; generating, for the cacheline, a third tag and a fourth tag, the third tag and the fourth tag generated as a function of the user data stored and metadata in the cacheline stored in a second memory device, and the multiplication parameter; storing the user data, the metadata, the third tag and the fourth tag in the corresponding cache line of the second memory device; receiving, from a requesting device, a read operation directed to the cacheline; and using the first tag, the second tag, the third tag, and the fourth tag to determine whether a read error occurred during the read operation.

Algebraic and deterministic memory authentication and correction with coupled cacheline metadata

Technologies disclosed herein provide one example of a system that includes processor circuitry to be communicatively coupled to a memory circuitry. The processor circuitry is to receive a memory access request corresponding to an application for access to an address range in a memory allocation of the memory circuitry and to locate a metadata region within the memory allocation. The processor circuitry is also to, in response to a determination that the address range includes at least a portion of the metadata region, obtain first metadata stored in the metadata region, use the first metadata to determine an alternate memory address in a relocation region, and read, at the alternate memory address, displaced data from the portion of the metadata region included in the address range of the memory allocation. The address range includes one or more bytes of an expected allocation region of the memory allocation.

Data relocation for inline metadata

Technologies disclosed herein provide one example of a system that includes processor circuitry and integrity circuitry. The processor circuitry is to receive a first request associated with an application to perform a memory access operation for an address range in a memory allocation of memory circuitry. The integrity circuitry is to determine a location of a metadata region within a cacheline that includes at least some of the address range, identify a first portion of the cacheline based at least in part on a first data bounds value stored in the metadata region, generate a first integrity value based on the first portion of the cacheline, and prevent the memory access operation in response to determining that the first integrity value does not correspond to a second integrity value stored in the metadata region.

Object and cacheline granularity cryptographic memory integrity

Technologies disclosed herein provide one example of a processor that includes a register to store a first encoded pointer for a first memory allocation for an application and circuitry coupled to memory. Size metadata is stored in first bits of the first encoded pointer and first memory address data associated with the first memory allocation is stored in second bits of the first encoded pointer. The circuitry is configured to determine a first memory address of a first marker region in the first memory allocation, obtain current data from the first marker region at the first memory address, compare the current data to a reference marker stored separately from the first memory allocation, and determine that the first memory allocation is in a first state in response to a determination that the current data corresponds to the reference marker.

Mitigating security vulnerabilities with memory allocation markers in cryptographic computing systems

In one embodiment, an encoded pointer is constructed from a stack pointer that includes offset. The encoded pointer includes the offset value and ciphertext that is based on encrypting a portion of a decorated pointer that includes a maximum offset value. Stack data is encrypted based on the encoded pointer, and the encoded pointer is stored in a stack pointer register of a processor. To access memory, a decoded pointer is constructed based on decrypting the ciphertext of the encoded pointer and the offset value. Encrypted stack data is accessed based on the decoded pointer, and the encrypted stack is decrypted based on the encoded pointer.

Encoded stack pointers

Embodiments are directed to collision-free hashing for accessing cryptographic computing metadata and for cache expansion. An embodiment of an apparatus includes one or more processors to: receive a physical address; compute a set of hash functions using a set of different indexes corresponding to the set of hash functions, wherein the set of hash functions combine additions, bit-level reordering, bit-linear mixing, and wide substitutions, wherein the plurality of hash functions differ in the bit-linear mixing; access a plurality of cache units utilizing the set of hash functions; read different sets of the plurality of cache units in parallel, where a set of the different sets is obtained from each cache unit of the plurality of cache units; and responsive to the physical address being located one of the different sets, return cache line data of the set corresponding to the set of the cache unit having the physical address.

Growing community of inventors

Hillsboro, OR, United States of America

Sergej Deutsch