| .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 |
| |
| SRBDS - Special Register Buffer Data Sampling |
| ============================================= |
| |
| SRBDS is a hardware vulnerability that allows MDS :doc:`mds` techniques to |
| infer values returned from special register accesses. Special register |
| accesses are accesses to off core registers. According to Intel's evaluation, |
| the special register reads that have a security expectation of privacy are |
| RDRAND, RDSEED and SGX EGETKEY. |
| |
| When RDRAND, RDSEED and EGETKEY instructions are used, the data is moved |
| to the core through the special register mechanism that is susceptible |
| to MDS attacks. |
| |
| Affected processors |
| ------------------- |
| Core models (desktop, mobile, Xeon-E3) that implement RDRAND and/or RDSEED may |
| be affected. |
| |
| A processor is affected by SRBDS if its Family_Model and stepping is |
| in the following list, with the exception of the listed processors |
| exporting MDS_NO while Intel TSX is available yet not enabled. The |
| latter class of processors are only affected when Intel TSX is enabled |
| by software using TSX_CTRL_MSR otherwise they are not affected. |
| |
| ============= ============ ======== |
| common name Family_Model Stepping |
| ============= ============ ======== |
| IvyBridge 06_3AH All |
| |
| Haswell 06_3CH All |
| Haswell_L 06_45H All |
| Haswell_G 06_46H All |
| |
| Broadwell_G 06_47H All |
| Broadwell 06_3DH All |
| |
| Skylake_L 06_4EH All |
| Skylake 06_5EH All |
| |
| Kabylake_L 06_8EH <= 0xC |
| Kabylake 06_9EH <= 0xD |
| ============= ============ ======== |
| |
| Related CVEs |
| ------------ |
| |
| The following CVE entry is related to this SRBDS issue: |
| |
| ============== ===== ===================================== |
| CVE-2020-0543 SRBDS Special Register Buffer Data Sampling |
| ============== ===== ===================================== |
| |
| Attack scenarios |
| ---------------- |
| An unprivileged user can extract values returned from RDRAND and RDSEED |
| executed on another core or sibling thread using MDS techniques. |
| |
| |
| Mitigation mechanism |
| -------------------- |
| Intel will release microcode updates that modify the RDRAND, RDSEED, and |
| EGETKEY instructions to overwrite secret special register data in the shared |
| staging buffer before the secret data can be accessed by another logical |
| processor. |
| |
| During execution of the RDRAND, RDSEED, or EGETKEY instructions, off-core |
| accesses from other logical processors will be delayed until the special |
| register read is complete and the secret data in the shared staging buffer is |
| overwritten. |
| |
| This has three effects on performance: |
| |
| #. RDRAND, RDSEED, or EGETKEY instructions have higher latency. |
| |
| #. Executing RDRAND at the same time on multiple logical processors will be |
| serialized, resulting in an overall reduction in the maximum RDRAND |
| bandwidth. |
| |
| #. Executing RDRAND, RDSEED or EGETKEY will delay memory accesses from other |
| logical processors that miss their core caches, with an impact similar to |
| legacy locked cache-line-split accesses. |
| |
| The microcode updates provide an opt-out mechanism (RNGDS_MITG_DIS) to disable |
| the mitigation for RDRAND and RDSEED instructions executed outside of Intel |
| Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) enclaves. On logical processors that |
| disable the mitigation using this opt-out mechanism, RDRAND and RDSEED do not |
| take longer to execute and do not impact performance of sibling logical |
| processors memory accesses. The opt-out mechanism does not affect Intel SGX |
| enclaves (including execution of RDRAND or RDSEED inside an enclave, as well |
| as EGETKEY execution). |
| |
| IA32_MCU_OPT_CTRL MSR Definition |
| -------------------------------- |
| Along with the mitigation for this issue, Intel added a new thread-scope |
| IA32_MCU_OPT_CTRL MSR, (address 0x123). The presence of this MSR and |
| RNGDS_MITG_DIS (bit 0) is enumerated by CPUID.(EAX=07H,ECX=0).EDX[SRBDS_CTRL = |
| 9]==1. This MSR is introduced through the microcode update. |
| |
| Setting IA32_MCU_OPT_CTRL[0] (RNGDS_MITG_DIS) to 1 for a logical processor |
| disables the mitigation for RDRAND and RDSEED executed outside of an Intel SGX |
| enclave on that logical processor. Opting out of the mitigation for a |
| particular logical processor does not affect the RDRAND and RDSEED mitigations |
| for other logical processors. |
| |
| Note that inside of an Intel SGX enclave, the mitigation is applied regardless |
| of the value of RNGDS_MITG_DS. |
| |
| Mitigation control on the kernel command line |
| --------------------------------------------- |
| The kernel command line allows control over the SRBDS mitigation at boot time |
| with the option "srbds=". The option for this is: |
| |
| ============= ============================================================= |
| off This option disables SRBDS mitigation for RDRAND and RDSEED on |
| affected platforms. |
| ============= ============================================================= |
| |
| SRBDS System Information |
| ------------------------ |
| The Linux kernel provides vulnerability status information through sysfs. For |
| SRBDS this can be accessed by the following sysfs file: |
| /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/srbds |
| |
| The possible values contained in this file are: |
| |
| ============================== ============================================= |
| Not affected Processor not vulnerable |
| Vulnerable Processor vulnerable and mitigation disabled |
| Vulnerable: No microcode Processor vulnerable and microcode is missing |
| mitigation |
| Mitigation: Microcode Processor is vulnerable and mitigation is in |
| effect. |
| Mitigation: TSX disabled Processor is only vulnerable when TSX is |
| enabled while this system was booted with TSX |
| disabled. |
| Unknown: Dependent on |
| hypervisor status Running on virtual guest processor that is |
| affected but with no way to know if host |
| processor is mitigated or vulnerable. |
| ============================== ============================================= |
| |
| SRBDS Default mitigation |
| ------------------------ |
| This new microcode serializes processor access during execution of RDRAND, |
| RDSEED ensures that the shared buffer is overwritten before it is released for |
| reuse. Use the "srbds=off" kernel command line to disable the mitigation for |
| RDRAND and RDSEED. |
