Encrypted RAM is offered by the newest Intel server-grade CPUs (SGX, Skylake) and the next AMD server-grade CPUs (SME, Zen).

One of the main use-cases for these technologies is trusted computing in a cloud environment - the customer can assert that the hardware is securing the program state from the eyes of the computer owner!.

However, the cloud is actually made from cheap commodity boxes without server-grade anything! ;)

Encrypting RAM pages would prevent the hypervisor from deduping pages between virtual machines, and this would be very negative for cloud providers who want to up the occupancy on each box as much as possible...

In a few years, or perhaps longer, perhaps proper DDR4 and other immune memory will be mainstream in clouds. But until then, it seems we'll have a cloud fitted out with increasingly aging cheap machines with no rowhammer immunity.

> However, the cloud is actually made from cheap commodity boxes without server-grade anything! ;)

You know, I refuse to buy anything that does not support ECC for my home desktops (and don't even pay much for it). Only my laptop got a pass from this because there was literally no option available with it.

Good to know cloud providers are not as careful... But honestly, shouldn't be a surprise.

Same here. It helps to sell it if you don't say ECC = RAM + extra cash. That's the normal method. I instead say you have two options:

1. RAM that works at this price.

2. RAM that allows more crashes or corruption of your files for slightly-lower price.

The Right Thing suddenly looks more obvious except to cheap skates. Now I just need one with ChipKill built-in. That's the next level of ECC. I haven't heard whether Intel or AMD got something similar.

Encrypted RAM as AMD is implementing it (SME) protects nicely from "cold-boot attacks" but is otherwise largely a feel-good feature. It also probably doesn't help a whole lot against rowhammer-style attacks because it's merely encrypted, not authenticated. The result is that a bit flip will effectively randomize 64 bytes or whatever the block size is but will not be otherwise detected by the hardware. I bet that clever attackers will find a nice way to take over by randomizing 64 bytes.

Intel's encrypted RAM is authenticated quite nicely, but it's not (yet?) designed for general purpose use -- it's for SGX only right now. Using it for everything would (if I understand correctly) add considerable space overhead and possibly considerable latency.

But encryption will prevent dedupe meaning a vm cannot attack other occupants as described in the article.

Don't think I've seen any non-server-grade processors in even the cheapest bargain-basement VPS hosts. (Low-end dedicated is different.) Cramming as many VMs into a big server as possible seems to be too important to their cost structure for that.

We perhaps only disagree on what is "server-grade" vs what is sold for servers.

Google, for example, are famous for making big data centres out of cheap commodity boxes, and I double Amazon are any different. I certainly know the rackspace blades I've played with didn't make my grade of either! :)

I can't make any claims to contrary about other providers, but I know at the very least that at one point not in too distant past the primary systems used for Rackspace Cloud hypervisors were Dell R720 rackmount servers. Maybe not the most amazing hardware, but considering how common they are you can hardly refuse to say they're "server-grade". The newer OpenCompute stuff is also clearly well-made hardware.

Everything I've read implies that cheap commodity servers like Open Compute are just as reliable as name brand Intel servers (not surprising considering that they're made from the same parts), and ~95% of the market appears to be satisfied with that level of reliability.

I figured it would end up in security-oriented, bare-metal hosting first. Or racks people rent out for their own boxes. Didn't know something like that was on new Inte/AMD CPU's. Thanks for tip.

ECC RAM has been around for a long time and may reduce, but not eliminate the risk. The problem is that the RAM is fundamentally defective.

I know what the root problem is. I also know it comes from an oligopoly of companies that only care about money, probably have patents on key features, and operate in a price-sensitive market. Fixing root cause might be tricky unless you could be sure via contracts of volume deals from cloud and other big buyers.

Meanwhile, small teams in academia are building CPU's that knock out those and other issues. Worth bringing up given the fix you want isnt doable for most HW dedigners. RAM vendors might eventually use it as a differentiator but that's not guaranteed.

You can't entirely blame the providers for only caring about money; the consumers that choose the budget hosting options for critical applications must surely share some of it.

Server grade hardware is certainly available to cloud/VPS providers, but it turns out people are unwilling to pay $2 for a VM if there's one going elsewhere for $1.50.

"the consumers that choose the budget hosting options for critical applications must surely share some of it."

The customers expect the RAM they bought to work correctly. They might have even read papers on ASIC verification where the hardware companies brag about all these techniques they use to prevent recalls like one Intel had. The issue is that the companies stopped doing or reduced verification on specific components to reduce costs. What they bring in on the chips is way more than it takes to do that. So, the reason must be greed driving the profits up a little bit.

This one is the companies' fault. I'd have assigned blame differently if we were talking security of regular, consumer products or even operating systems. Verification of repeating pieces of hardware circuits is an industry-standard practice, though. Except for RAM providers apparently.