Google Engineers Argue For Linux "ASI" To Better Deal With Speculative Execution Attacks

[OmniNegro]

Does ASI require disabling hyperthreading to be efficient?

This is unclear. But at the very least, it is a better fix that we have currently.

Most people actually have no need of mitigation at all. We use Linux, not some garbageware by Microshaft. We get our software mostly from trustworthy sources, unlike anything Windows.

If you do need mitigation, this could be a great advantage over what we currently have.

[gosh000]

Does ASI require disabling hyperthreading to be efficient?

[JEBjames]

Michael

Typo/Grammar

"it should be be the path" should be "it should be the path"

"both of Google, used Linux Plumbers Conference" should probably be "both of Google, used the Linux Plumbers Conference"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Engineers Argue For Linux "ASI" To Better Deal With Speculative Execution Attacks

Proposed a few years ago was Kernel Address Space Isolation (KASI / ASI) for limiting data leaks with the growing number of speculative execution attacks on CPUs. Several organizations have been involved with Address Space Isolation efforts for the Linux kernel including IBM, Oracle, and Google with various approaches. Google engineers earlier this year posted a newer iteration of ASI focused on KVM use for the cloud / VMs. ASI still hasn't made it to the mainline kernel but Google engineers this week at LPC argued that it should be be the path forward for mainline in better dealing with these CPU security vulnerabilities...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Google-LPC-ASI-2022