Security News > 2020 > October > Intel Adds Memory Encryption, Firmware Security to Ice Lake Chips

One such feature is called Intel Total Memory Encryption, which Intel said helps ensure that all memory accessed from the CPU is encrypted - such as customer credentials, encryption keys and other IP or personal information on the external memory bus.

The Intel Platform Firmware Resilience will be part of the Xeon Scalable platform, which Intel claims will help protect against platform firmware attacks by detecting them before they can compromise or disable the machine.

Intel PFR will use an Intel field-programmable gate array as a "Platform root of trust," which will validate critical-to-boot platform firmware components before any firmware code is executed, according to Intel.

Intel SGX, a set of security-related instruction codes that are built into Intel CPUs, shields sensitive data - such as AES encryption keys - inside "Enclaves," which are physically separate from other CPU memory and are protected by software encryption.

Of note, Intel SGX is not an end-all-be-all solution - researchers have previously been able to bypass SGX in various attacks, from the Plundervolt security issue revealed in 2019 to speculative execution design flaws in Intel CPUs revealed in 2018.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/intel-encryption-security-ice-lake-chips/160083/