>It wasn’t even that long ago that ucode wasn’t even encrypted with integrity
whether they're encrypted or not doesn't really matter. what actually matters is whether they're signed or not. There was a talk given in 2017 about trying to modify the microcode in AMD processors, but they were using processors from a decade ago (AMD K10, introduced 2007). That makes me think that processors made in the past decade are probably using signed microcode.
Yeah, although I didn't find the original paper. Reading into it more, they mention when AMD and Intel started signing their microcode.
>Note that Intel started to cryptographically sign microcode updates in 1995 [15] and AMD started to de-ploy strong cryptographic protection in 2011 [15].
whether they're encrypted or not doesn't really matter. what actually matters is whether they're signed or not. There was a talk given in 2017 about trying to modify the microcode in AMD processors, but they were using processors from a decade ago (AMD K10, introduced 2007). That makes me think that processors made in the past decade are probably using signed microcode.