Mandiant, Inc.
System and method for mitigating cyberattacks against processor operability by a guest process

Abstract:

According to one embodiment of the disclosure, a method for reassigning execution of certain instructions directed to a speculative execution task or a reserved instruction, attempted by a guess process, to be handled by a host process is described herein. The method involves detecting whether a software component, operating within a virtual machine deployed within a guest environment of the network device, is attempting to execute an instruction associated with a speculative execution task. If so, the speculative execution task is prevented from being performed by the software component without the virtual machine detecting that speculative execution by the software component has been reassigned.