Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Intel microcode fixes [OFF-TOPIC] | Date | Fri, 20 Nov 1998 16:53:02 +0200 (EET) | From | Matti Aarnio <> |
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> EGADS! Is there NO security on the processor microcode? Could this be > exploited to do evil narsty things? > > In a serious note (microcode viruses aside), I don't think that I or many > other people even knew that Intel's microcode was changeable. I wonder > what the security implications could be?
This issue was hashed about at this list a few months ago, please go dig the archive.
> Does Linux protect the cpu at all in this instance?
Sure, supervisor only -- but if malicious user gets into the supervisor mode to execute the microcode download, you have been had anyway in many fronts.
Of course Intel does not document *publicly*, how you can write microcode for each processor version. Such a thing is *very* difficult to reverse-engineer without full documents! (Ergo, I don't fear that.)
> jf > -
/Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@sonera.fi>
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