Re:DRAM Changed the World
by myself248 on Wednesday October 23, 2024 @11:44AM
(#41926218)
Coreboot and some other low-level stuff uses cache-as-RAM during early steps of the boot process.
There was briefly a product called vCage loading a whole secure hypervisor into cache-as-RAM, with a goal of being secure against DRAM-remanence ("cold-boot") attacks where the DIMMs are fast-chilled to slow charge leakage and removed from the target system to dump their contents. Since the whole secure perimeter was on-die in the CPU, it could use memory encryption to treat the DRAM as untrusted.
There was briefly a product called vCage loading a whole secure hypervisor into cache-as-RAM, with a goal of being secure against DRAM-remanence ("cold-boot") attacks where the DIMMs are fast-chilled to slow charge leakage and removed from the target system to dump their contents. Since the whole secure perimeter was on-die in the CPU, it could use memory encryption to treat the DRAM as untrusted.
So, yeah, you can do it. It's funky.