Abstract
Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) promises
an isolated execution environment, protected from all software
running on the machine. As such, numerous works have
sought to leverage SGX to provide confidentiality and integrity
guarantees for code running in adversarial environments. In
the past few years however, SGX has come under heavy
fire, threatened by numerous hardware attacks. With Intel
repeatedly patching SGX to regain security while consistently
launching new (micro)architectures, it is increasingly difficult
to track the applicability of various attacks techniques across
the SGX design landscape.
Thus, in this paper we set out to survey and categorize
various SGX attacks, their applicability to different SGX
architectures, as well as the information leaked by them. We
then set out to explore the effectiveness of SGX’s update
mechanisms in preventing attacks on real-world deployments.
Here, we study two commercial SGX applications. First, we
investigate the SECRET network, an SGX-backed blockchain
aiming to provide privacy preserving smart contracts. Next,
we also consider PowerDVD, a UHD Blu-Ray Digital Rights
Management (DRM) software licensed to play discs on PCs.
We show that in both cases vendors are unable to meet security
goals originally envisioned for their products, presumably due
to SGX’s long update timelines and the complexities of a
manual update process. This in turn forces vendors into mak-
ing difficult security/usability trade offs, resulting in security
compromises.
A worthwhile read for those who don't mind a more technical paper