Shattering Illusions in Lock-Free Worlds - Compiler - Hardware Behaviors in OSes - VMs

Explore the intricacies of memory access operations in operating systems, virtual machines, and traditional applications during this Black Hat USA 2013 conference talk. Delve into the security issues that can arise from different threads and processes, particularly in non-blocking code, due to compiler and hardware behaviors. Understand how compilers and hardware create an illusion of sequential order execution, which holds true for single-threaded code but breaks down in shared memory scenarios. Learn about the challenges developers face in protecting memory sections from aggressive read/write re-ordering and various optimizations across different architectures like x86, x86-64, IA64, ARM CPUs, and GPUs. Gain insights into common issues related to loosely ordered hardware and C/C++11 memory models, as well as comparisons with higher-level languages. Discover strategies for mitigating these issues and improving your ability to identify potential vulnerabilities in lock-free environments.