4 ms·

> Those DMA attacks can be blocked by the OS properly configuring an IOMMU Wikipedia seems to state no OS has managed to do so (as of 2019). Thunderbolt had be

• wtallis 6y ago
  > So it couldn't possibly be made secure before 2015 You're wildly misunderstanding things. Up to 2015, it was possible to build a new PC that lacked the necessary hardware features, primarily by choosing one of Intel's enthusiast-oriented overclockable CPU models (which used to have the IOMMU disabled for product segmentation reasons). But it was still very much possible to get all the necessary hardware features by selecting the next slower speed grade of the same chip, or by buying almost any pre-built system equipped with Thunderbolt ports. And since then, it's been almost impossible to build a PC that lacks the necessary hardware security features, because pretty much the only Intel CPUs still in production that lack IOMMU capabilities are Atom parts which aren't socketed and probably aren't used in any Thunderbolt-capable machines. > Wikipedia seems to state no OS has managed to do so (as of 2019). Thunderbolt had been around since 2011. You should read more carefully, and preferably follow the link to the source paper. That paper points out how Mac OS X started using the IOMMU to protect against DMA attacks in 2012, Linux and FreeBSD likewise have such capabilities, Windows pretty much doesn't (no longer true). The point of that paper cited on Wikipedia was to show that when operating systems poke holes in the IOMMU protection to allow certain devices to perform DMA, it's possible to open up a more exploitable hole than you might expect. In particular, data structures may need to be rearranged to align with the 4kB page protection granularity, or else information that should remain inaccessible to peripherals may be exposed alongside legitimate DMA payload. And it's also possible for a malicious device to spoof the device IDs of a trusted device type and be granted access by default, but that's a class of vulnerability that exists for plain old USB, too. So as I originally stated, the IOMMU is the hardware feature needed to block DMA attacks. But it's only effective when used properly by the OS. That's not trivial—but also not impossible.
  • kps 6y ago
    > Intel's enthusiast-oriented overclockable CPU models (which used to have the IOMMU disabled for product segmentation reasons). That doesn't seem obvious to me. Is there evidence it wasn't just binning?
    • wtallis 6y ago
      When parts of a chip are turned off for binning reasons, it's because those features take up a large area and those large units containing a defect can be disabled wholesale and still leave you with a usable chip. This usually manifests as disabling either whole cores, or substantial portions of last level cache memory. Features like HyperThreading or IOMMU are integral to the design of functional units that aren't optional. Those features aren't implemented as separate physical regions of silicon that take up non-trivial space, so it's very unlikely that a defect could break HyperThreading without breaking the entire CPU core, or that a defect could break IOMMU functionality without breaking the entire PCIe root complex. Disabling features like this does not meaningfully change the fraction of dies that pass quality control. The IOMMU in particular is probably not going to be affected by overclocking, because it's probably in the same clock domain as the rest of the PCIe IO stuff, and that clock domain doesn't usually get overclocked when the CPU or DRAM is overclocked. So there's no reason to expect IOMMU functionality to affect what CPU clock speed a given die can reach.