Cryptographic protection of I/O data for DMA capable I/O controllers

US10181946B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Intel Corporation · US

Inventors

• Reshma Lal · Portland, US
• Steven B. McGowan · Portland, US
• Siddhartha Chhabra · Portland, US
• Gideon Gerzon · Jerusalem, IL
• Bin Xing · Hillsboro, US
• Pradeep M. Pappachan · Hillsboro, US
• Reouven Elbaz · Portland, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 18, 2015
• Grant date: Jan 15, 2019
• Expiry date: May 15, 2036

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F2212/1052
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Technologies for cryptographic protection of I/O data include a computing device with one or more I/O controllers. Each I/O controller may generate a direct memory access (DMA) transaction that includes a channel identifier that is indicative of the I/O controller and that is indicative of an I/O device coupled to the I/O controller. The computing device intercepts the DMA transaction and determines whether to protect the DMA transaction as a function of the channel identifier. If so, the computing device performs a cryptographic operation using an encryption key associated with the channel identifier. The computing device may include a cryptographic engine that intercepts the DMA transaction and determines whether to protect the DMA transaction by determining whether the channel identifier matches an entry in a channel identifier table of the cryptographic engine. Other embodiments are described and claimed.