2 ms·
> SEV allows encryption of a VM’s memory, further mitigating read attacks This is incorrect. Spectre works at a cache level, memory is decrypted by that point
by paulmd 9y ago
> SEV allows encryption of a VM’s memory, further mitigating read attacks
This is incorrect. Spectre works at a cache level, memory is decrypted by that point - if it were encrypted you couldn't use it for the good kind of speculation either. This means SEV doesn't do anything in particular here, effectively the victim is decrypting its RAM for you.
The point of SEV is to make memory inaccessible after shutdown, whether that's physical (cold boot attacks) or virtual (VM instances reusing host memory). Not for Spectre.