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The Linux Virtual Memory System: Other Security Problems

The Linux Virtual Memory System: Other Security Problems

Learn how Linux improves its defense system by kernel page-table isolation to protect itself from recent emerging attacks.

As we write these words (August, 2018), the world of systems security has been turned upside down by two new and related attacks. The first is called Meltdown, and the second Spectre. They were discovered at about the same time by four different groups of researchers/engineers, and have led to deep questioning of the fundamental protections offered by computer hardware and the OS above. See meltdownattack.com and spectreattack.com for papers describing each attack in detail. Spectre is considered the more problematic of the two.

Speculative execution

The general ...