Talk Title:

Speculative execution vulnerabilities: From a Simple Oversight to a Technological Nightmare

Abstract:

Since the discovery of Spectre & Meltdown, about 7 other speculative execution vulnerabilities have been discovered. These attacks can have a devastating impact. In this talk we will focus on the key issue with these attacks, and with Foreshadow/L1TF as a specific example. Unfortunately, due to the complexity of modern processors, we expect that even more vulnerabilities will be discovered. Let's hope they are found by altruistic security researchers.

Speaker Bio:

Raoul Strackx
After being amazed by reports on low-level vulnerabilities in technical media, Raoul started a PhD on low-level security architectures. He was one of the first group of researchers taking an interest in protected-module architectures. Since Intel ships Intel Software Security eXtensions with almost every new Intel processor, interest of both industry as academia has both skyrocketed. As of 2017 he has been working on speculative execution attacks. His Foreshadow/L1TF attack received worldwide attention.