Re:AMD ships microcode update to disable some branch prediction
by pkaye on Friday January 05, 2018 @04:24PM
(#16081788)
To be absolutely safe, you just need a processor that is simple enough not to use any of these performance enhancing techniques (ie out-of-order execution, speculation, branch prediction, caching.) Of course it might be much slower than you are used to but if security is your primary concern it makes sense.
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Re:AMD ships microcode update to disable some branch prediction
by AstralStorm on Friday January 05, 2018 @05:08PM
(#16082176)
Only caching use a problem. Indirect branch prediction can be "flattened" at a cost by checking TLB in context switch, presuming the kernel sets it up nicely per process. The other techniques are fine. As usual, secure code needs to be written with timing attacks in mind and they don't change much there.