Intel to enable SGX technology on future Skylake CPUs

[Shawn Knight]

Intel’s initial batch of Skylake processors shipped without Software Guard Extensions (SGX) enabled. That’ll soon be changing as the chipmaker has published a product change notification letting partners know that future Skylake chips will have the feature enabled.

For those not up to speed, SGX is an x86 instruction set designed to boost software security. As KitGuru explains, SGX allows legitimate sensitive code and data to be stored securely in an enclave that’s protected from malware attacks.

Chipzilla introduced SGX with its Haswell CPU architecture although it’s unclear why it was disabled in the first batch of Skylake chips.

It’s worth mentioning that for SGX to work, it needs to be supported by the processor, operating system and applications – it’s not simply a plug-and-play solution.

Those being changed include the Xeon E3-1200 v5, the Core i5 and Core i7 families. The new chips will have a different S-Spec code and MM numbers but that’s all that’s changing. There will be no changes in stepping or die size, the CPUID will remain the same and there won’t need to be any BIOS updates for end-users.

Intel said it will begin shipping Skylake chips with SGX enabled on October 26 and that partners must be ready for the change by November 30. All things considered, the transition is expected to be quite smooth.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/62324-intel-enable-sgx-technology-future-skylake-cpus.html

 

[cliffordcooley]

For those not up to speed, SGX is an x86 instruction set designed to boost software security. As <a href="http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...-skylake-processors-to-enable-sgx-extensions/">KitGuru</a> explains, SGX allows legitimate sensitive code and data to be stored securely in an enclave that's protected from malware attacks.

Ahh yeah, that's clear as mud. Or should I use the cryptic analogy instead?

 

[waterytowers]

I expect it means you can't run anything unless m$ let's you! If this is like the secure bios I will wait for it to be disabled so I can continue to run Linux. All security does is slow things down and lock you in to some proprietary software. How about making something useful.

 

[lipe123]

@waterytowers
It has nothing to do with what code is allowed to run on not or "m$" controlling your life like apple.
And what does the bios have to do with intel, why are you ranting about that?

It simply lets some programs operate in a different space by using a type of whitelist so malware cannot mess with the memory they use.

 

[deemon]

It simply lets some programs operate in a different space by using a type of whitelist so malware cannot mess with the memory they use.

or spyware can run there while being protected from any detection programs.

 

[robb213]

It simply lets some programs operate in a different space by using a type of whitelist so malware cannot mess with the memory they use.

or spyware can run there while being protected from any detection programs.

Sooner or later at least. Even then it'll probably be in such a minority that most won't have to worry about it.