Software Guard Extensions
Intel SGX is a set of new instructions from Intel that allows user-level code to allocate private regions of memory, called enclaves, that unlike normal process memory is also protected from processes running at higher privilege levels.[1]
Support for SGX in the CPU is indicated in CPUID "Structured Extended feature Leaf", EBX bit 02,[2] but its availability to applications requires BIOS support and opt-in enabling which is not reflected in CPUID bits. This complicates the feature detection logic for applications.[3]
Emulation of SGX was added to experimental version of QEMU system emulator in 2014.[4] In 2015, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology released an open-source simulator known as OpenSGX.[5]
It was introduced in 2015 with the sixth generation Intel Core microprocessors based on the Skylake microarchitecture.
The introduction of SGX has a large impact on the security industry. It shifts how security is being achieved and lowers the attack surface area of projects. One example of SGX used in security was a demo application from wolfSSL [6] using it for cryptography algorithms. An additional example is Numecent using SGX to protect the DRM that is used to authorize application execution with their Cloudpaging application delivery products. [7]
References
- ^ "Intel® SGX for Dummies (Intel® SGX Design Objectives)". intel.com. 2013-09-26.
- ^ Intel Architecture Instruction Set Extensions Programming Reference, Intel, AUGUST 2015, page 36 "Structured Extended feature Leaf EAX=07h, EBX Bit 02: SGX"
- ^ "Properly Detecting Intel® Software Guard Extensions in Your Applications". intel.com. 2016-05-13.
- ^ https://tc.gtisc.gatech.edu/bss/2014/l/final/pjain43.pdf
- ^ "sslab-gatech/opensgx". GitHub. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
- ^ "wolfSSL At IDF". wolfssl. 2016-08-11.
- ^ "Numecent Cloudpaging at Intel IDF". numecent.com. 2016-08-16.
External links
- Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) / ISA Extensions, Intel
- Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) Programming Reference, Intel, October 2014
- IDF 2015 - Tech Chat: A Primer on Intel® Software Guard Extensions, Intel (poster)
- ISCA 2015 tutorial slides for Intel SGX, Intel, June 2015
- McKeen, Frank, et al. (Intel), Innovative Instructions and Software Model for Isolated Execution // Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Hardware and Architectural Support for Security and Privacy. ACM, 2013.
- Joanna Rutkowska, Thoughts on Intel's upcoming Software Guard Extensions (Part 1), August 2013
- SGX: the good, the bad and the downright ugly / Shaun Davenport, Richard Ford (Florida Institute of Technology) / Virus Bulletin, 2014-01-07
- Victor Costan and Srinivas Devadas, Intel SGX Explained, January 2016.
- wolfSSL, October 2016.
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