Memory Integrity Enforcement
17 hours ago
- #Apple-silicon
- #memory-safety
- #cybersecurity
- Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) is Apple's comprehensive memory safety defense, integrating hardware and software for unparalleled protection.
- MIE is built on secure memory allocators (kalloc_type, xzone malloc) and Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) in synchronous mode.
- Apple's offensive research team rigorously tested MIE against sophisticated exploit chains, finding it significantly disrupts attackers' capabilities.
- MIE blocks common memory corruption vulnerabilities like buffer overflows and use-after-free by leveraging hardware-enforced tag checking.
- Tag Confidentiality Enforcement protects against side-channel and speculative-execution attacks, ensuring the security of EMTE tags.
- Apple's secure allocators use type-aware placement to thwart memory corruption techniques, setting a new standard for software protection.
- MIE is designed to be always-on, synchronous, and invisible to users, maintaining high performance while providing groundbreaking security.
- The implementation of MIE involved extensive collaboration between Apple's hardware and software teams, including updates to Apple silicon and operating systems.
- MIE is available on iPhone 17 and iPhone Air, offering protection for key attack surfaces like the kernel and over 70 userland processes.
- Apple believes MIE represents the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of consumer operating systems.