The Linux Virtual Memory System: Other Security Problems
Understand the security vulnerabilities of the Linux virtual memory system, focusing on how Meltdown and Spectre attacks exploit speculative execution in CPUs. Learn about kernel page-table isolation as a mitigation and the trade-offs between security and performance in modern operating systems.
We'll cover the following...
As we write these words (August, 2018), the world of systems security has been turned upside down by two new and related attacks. The first is called Meltdown, and the second Spectre. They were discovered at about the same time by four different groups of researchers/engineers, and have led to deep questioning of the fundamental protections offered by computer hardware and the OS above. See meltdownattack.com and spectreattack.com for papers describing each attack in detail. Spectre is considered the more problematic of the two.
Speculative execution
The general ...