STORAGE TYPE THAT CAN BE CACHEED AND HAS BEEN INAccessible BY SPECULATIVE INSTRUCTIONS

摘要

An improved architectural means for addressing processor cache attacks based on speculative execution defines a new type of memory that is both cacheable and speculative inaccessible. A speculative execution cannot access and expose a location that is not speculatively accessible. Such mechanisms can prevent certain sensitive data from being exposed through speculative execution. Data that must be protected at a service price can be specially marked. If the processor is told where secrets are stored in memory and is prohibited from speculating on those locations, the processor will ensure that the process attempting to access those locations is authorized to access those locations access before reading and caching them. Such a countermeasure is effective against attacks that use speculative execution to extract secrets from a processor cache.