ARM Trusted Firmware Security Advisory TFV 5

Title	Not initializing or saving/restoring PMCR_EL0 can leak secure world timing information
CVE ID	TBC
Date	02 Oct 2017
Versions Affected	All, up to and including v1.4
Configurations Affected	All
Impact	Leakage of sensitive secure world timing information
Fix Version	Pull Request 1127 (merged on 18 October 2017)
Credit	Arm

The PMCR_EL0 (Performance Monitors Control Register) provides details of the Performance Monitors implementation, including the number of counters implemented, and configures and controls the counters. If the PMCR_EL0.DP bit is set to zero, the cycle counter (when enabled) counts during secure world execution, even when prohibited by the debug signals.

Since Arm TF does not save and restore PMCR_EL0 when switching between the normal and secure worlds, normal world code can set PMCR_EL0.DP to zero to cause leakage of secure world timing information. This register should be added to the list of saved/restored registers.

Furthermore, PMCR_EL0.DP has an architecturally UNKNOWN reset value. Since Arm TF does not initialize this register, it's possible that on at least some implementations, PMCR_EL0.DP is set to zero by default. This and other bits with an architecturally UNKNOWN reset value should be initialized to sensible default values in the secure context.

The same issue exists for the equivalent AArch32 register, PMCR, except that here PMCR_EL0.DP architecturally resets to zero.