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 the 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.[citation needed] 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. One example of a secure service built using SGX is Fortanix‘s key management service.[7] This entire cloud based service is built using SGX servers and designed to provide privacy from cloud provider. An additional example is Numecent using SGX to protect the DRM that is used to authorize application execution with their Cloudpaging application delivery products.[8]
Flaws
Prime+Probe attack
On 27 March 2017 researches at Austria’s Graz University of Technology developed a proof-of-concept that can grab RSA keys from SGX enclaves running on the same system within five minutes by using certain CPU instructions in lieu of a fine-grained timer to exploit cache DRAM side-channels.[9][10]
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.
- ^ “Fortanix Intel SGX Based Key Management”. 2017-02-26.
- ^ “Numecent Cloudpaging at Intel IDF”. numecent.com. 2016-08-16.
- ^ Chirgwin, Richard (March 7, 2017). “Boffins show Intel’s SGX can leak crypto keys”. The Register. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
- ^ Schwarz, Michael; Weiser, Samuel; Gruss, Daniel; Maurice, Clémentine; Mangard, Stefan (March 1, 2017). “Malware Guard Extension: Using SGX to Conceal Cache Attacks”. Graz University of Technology. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
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.