The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 16, 2021
Filed:
Nov. 21, 2014
Vmware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Wei Xu, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Alok Nemchand Kataria, Pune, IN;
Rakesh Agarwal, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Martim Carbone, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
In a computer system operable at more than one privilege level, an interrupt security module handles interrupts without exposing a secret value of a register to virtual interrupt handling code that executes at a lower privilege level than the interrupt security module. The interrupt security module is configured to intercept interrupts generated while executing code at lower privilege levels. Upon receiving such an interrupt, the interrupt security module overwrites the secret value of the register with an unrelated constant. Subsequently, the interrupt security module generates a virtual interrupt corresponding to the interrupt and forwards the virtual interrupt to the virtual interrupt handling code. Advantageously, although the virtual interrupt handling code is able to determine the value of the register and consequently the unrelated constant, the virtual interrupt handling code is unable to determine the secret value.