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Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> Higher-level languages will probably become nearly immune to Spectre just |
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> as most are nearly immune to buffer overflows. |
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|
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Quite the opposite: Higher-level languages *always* do some checks |
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for array-length etc, and it is the _checks_ which are vulnerable. |
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You can only make them non-vulnerable by making them horribly slow |
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(by omitting speculative execution completely for the corresponding |
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conditionals). |
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The same omission could also be arranged automatically for _every_ |
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C-code (security at the price of a hugh speed cost). I still do |
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not understand why such an option is not yet implemented in gcc: |
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AFAIK, none of the current options -mindirect-branch* |
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-mfunction-return* -fcf-protection=full (though I am not |
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completely sure about the latter) would protect you automatically |
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against speculative exection for bound-checking conditional tests. |
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I am aware that this would cost a lot of speed, |
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but for certain systems/applications this might be worth. |
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