AMD x86 Memory Encryption Technologies

[Pieter3dnow]

AMD x86 Memory Encryption Technologies by David Kaplan, AMD



http://events.linuxfoundation.org/s...6 Memory Encryption Technology LSS Slides.pdf

This presentation will introduce the audience to two new x86 security technologies developed by AMD which utilize new memory encryption hardware to provide new security enhancements. The first feature, Secure Memory Encryption (SME), is designed to protect systems from physical access attacks by encrypting some or all system memory. The second feature, Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) enables the ability to run encrypted virtual machines isolated from the hypervisor. This presentation will include a technical overview of these features, including ISA changes, security benefits, the key management framework, and Linux enablement.

About David Kaplan

David is a hardware security architect at AMD who focuses on developing new security technologies across the AMD product line as part of the Security Architecture Research and Development center. He is the lead architect for the AMD memory encryption features and has worked on both CPU and SOC level security features for the last 4 years. David has almost 10 years of experience at AMD with a background in x86 CPU development. He has filed over 30 patents in his career so far, and spoken at events such as 32C3.

Stumbled onto this youtube has some decent information about the features coming to Linux

 

[Shintai]

Its not exactly news and its a common feature these days. AMD was just behind on it, it came with Haswell and is called MPX there.

There is a whitepaper from April here:
http://amd-dev.wpengine.netdna-cdn....MD_Memory_Encryption_Whitepaper_v7-Public.pdf