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So when are we getting encrypted RAM? With all the talk I hear about "cache being the new RAM", since it's so much faster, particularly the L1, it sounds like
by jarfil 8y ago
So when are we getting encrypted RAM?
With all the talk I hear about "cache being the new RAM", since it's so much faster, particularly the L1, it sounds like it would make sense to have some transparent encryption going on. A random key generated at power on, then kept inside the CPU, and instantly lost at power off, would be enough to secure the contents of DIMMs against attacks like this.
- detaro 8y agoI believe some AMD CPUs already support it, and there's some mention of it in Linux Kernel docs (https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/x86/amd-memory-encryption.txt https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/...), but I'm not sure if it's actually used in practice or not.
- simias 8y agoSomebody could put a hardware keylogger on your keyboard interface instead. Or de-solder your CPU and replace it with a backdoored version.
- 21 8y agoSeriously? How many backdoored CPU attacks have you heard of before? If you need protection against that, might as well live inside a vault.
- cesarb 8y agoIt already exists on AMD: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/x86/sme https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/x86/sme