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Commit 8de62af0 authored by Kirill A. Shutemov's avatar Kirill A. Shutemov Committed by Dave Hansen
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x86/tdx: Disable NOTIFY_ENABLES

== Background ==

There is a class of side-channel attacks against SGX enclaves called
"SGX Step"[1]. These attacks create lots of exceptions inside of
enclaves. Basically, run an in-enclave instruction, cause an exception.
Over and over.

There is a concern that a VMM could attack a TDX guest in the same way
by causing lots of #VE's. The TDX architecture includes new
countermeasures for these attacks. It basically counts the number of
exceptions and can send another *special* exception once the number of
VMM-induced #VE's hits a critical threshold[2].

== Problem ==

But, these special exceptions are independent of any action that the
guest takes. They can occur anywhere that the guest executes. This
includes sensitive areas like the entry code. The (non-paranoid) #VE
handler is incapable of handling exceptions in these areas.

== Solution ==

Fortunately, the special exceptions can be disabled by the guest via
write to NOTIFY_ENABLES TDCS field. NOTIFY_ENABLES is disabled by
default, but might be enabled by a bootloader, firmware or an earlier
kernel before the current kernel runs.

Disable NOTIFY_ENABLES feature explicitly and unconditionally. Any
NOTIFY_ENABLES-based #VE's that occur before this point will end up
in the early #VE exception handler and die due to unexpected exit
reason.

[1] https://github.com/jovanbulck/sgx-step
[2] https://intel.github.io/ccc-linux-guest-hardening-docs/security-spec.html#safety-against-ve-in-kernel-code



Signed-off-by: default avatarKirill A. Shutemov <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarDave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: default avatarDave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230126221159.8635-8-kirill.shutemov%40linux.intel.com
parent 47e67cf3
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