November 15
15:00 — 16:00
Wake up, Neo: detection of virtualization via speculative
execution
There have been several Speculative Execution vulnerabilities allowing to read
privileged data from kernel mode, as well as other processes and even hypervisors.
However, there are several more ways in which speculative execution can be leveraged
by adversaries. I have discovered one such technique, which allows the
attacker on the system to get information allowing them to evade detection by modern
sandboxes and AV software. This technique led to the discovery of Spectre Variant 3a
virtualization detection vulnerability in Intel CPUs but can also be used in a few
more ways. In this talk I'll explain the principles behind speculative execution
vulnerabilities and talk about the detector technique.