-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 156
New issue
Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.
Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account
Add CONFIG_AMD_MEM_ENCRYPT #132
base: master
Are you sure you want to change the base?
Conversation
Encrypted RAM is a security mechanism, if only against forensic.
ea24300
to
78f5595
Compare
@@ -238,6 +238,7 @@ def add_kconfig_checks(l, arch): | |||
iommu_support_is_set)] | |||
l += [AND(KconfigCheck('self_protection', 'kspp', 'AMD_IOMMU_V2', 'y'), | |||
iommu_support_is_set)] | |||
l += [KconfigCheck('self_protection', 'defconfig', 'AMD_MEM_ENCRYPT', 'y')] |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Choose a reason for hiding this comment
The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.
Hi @jvoisin,
The AMD_MEM_ENCRYPT
kconfig option is not enabled by default.
Hence we can't write this as "defconfig recommendation".
I also can't call it self_protection
because it doesn't mitigate any kernel vulnerability class or exploit technique.
So for now this check doesn't look very convincing for me.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Choose a reason for hiding this comment
The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.
Yeah, anti-forensic is not really an exploit class/technique, but I think it still falls within the scope of hardening, no?
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Choose a reason for hiding this comment
The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.
I don't have a strong opinion on it.
Maybe the reason
of this check can be changed to something like confidential computing
instead of self_protection
: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/confidential-computing-an-aws-perspective/
But honestly, I'm not very optimistic about confidential computing because of side channels like this:
https://cipherleaks.com/
We need to discuss it more with KSPP and friends before recommending to users.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Choose a reason for hiding this comment
The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.
I think the threat model is more about preventing data from being recovered from the ram after an abrupt poweroff than about protecting data at runtime.
Encrypted RAM is a security mechanism, if only against forensic.