[RFC, PATCH] x86_64: KAISER - do not map kernel in user mode

From: Daniel Gruss
Date: Thu May 04 2017 - 06:10:43 EST


After several recent works [1,2,3] KASLR on x86_64 was basically considered dead by many researchers. We have been working on an efficient but effective fix for this problem and found that not mapping the kernel space when running in user mode is the solution to this problem [4] (the corresponding paper [5] will be presented at ESSoS17).

With this RFC patch we allow anybody to configure their kernel with the flag CONFIG_KAISER to add our defense mechanism.

If there are any questions we would love to answer them.
We also appreciate any comments!

Cheers,
Daniel (+ the KAISER team from Graz University of Technology)

[1] http://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2013/papers/4977a191.pdf
[2] https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-16/materials/us-16-Fogh-Using-Undocumented-CPU-Behaviour-To-See-Into-Kernel-Mode-And-Break-KASLR-In-The-Process.pdf
[3] https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-16/materials/us-16-Jang-Breaking-Kernel-Address-Space-Layout-Randomization-KASLR-With-Intel-TSX.pdf
[4] https://github.com/IAIK/KAISER
[5] https://gruss.cc/files/kaiser.pdf