Dynamic switching between pointer authentication regimes

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing instructions to cause at least one of multiple processors of a system on a chip integrated circuit (SOC) to perform operations comprising:

• deriving one or more agent master keys for use by one or more of the multiple processors of the SOC, the one or more agent master keys derived from a master key of the SOC;
• deriving a set of signature and authentication keys for use by one or more of the multiple processors;
• signing an address of a pointer using one or more of the signature and authentication keys;
• storing the pointer to a memory;
• and
• authenticating the pointer before executing an instruction associated with the pointer.

A method comprising:

• on a processor of an electronic device:
• generating a pointer;
• selecting a hardware-based key for use to generate a signature for the pointer;
• diversifying the hardware-based key with selected key diversification data to generate a diversified key;
• signing a value of an address within the pointer with the diversified key to generate a pointer signature;
• and
• verifying the pointer signature before referencing the address within the pointer with the processor.