Performance monitoring unit of a processor deterring tampering of counter configuration and enabling verifiable data sampling

A method comprising:

• receiving, in a secure performance monitoring unit (SPMU) of a processor, a request to create a secure counter group in the SPMU from a software (SW) process being executed by the processor, the request including identification of one or more performance monitoring counters of the SPMU;
• determining availability of the one or more performance monitoring counters, creating the secure counter group, assigning the one or more performance monitoring counters to the secure counter group, and saving a public key of the SW process, when the one or more performance monitoring counters are available;
• receiving and saving a private key for the secure counter group;
• receiving a request to configure the secure counter group from the SW process;
• verifying the configuration using the public key of the SW process;
• and
• starting sampling of the one or more performance monitoring counters when the configuration is verified.

At least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processing device to at least:

• receive, in a secure performance monitoring unit (SPMU) of a processor, a request to create a secure counter group in the SPMU from a software (SW) process being executed by the processor, the request including identification of one or more performance monitoring counters of the SPMU;
• determine availability of the one or more performance monitoring counters, creating the secure counter group, assign the one or more performance monitoring counters to the secure counter group, and save a public key of the SW process, when the one or more performance monitoring counters are available;
• receive and save a private key for the secure counter group;
• receive a request to configure the secure counter group from the SW process;
• verify the configuration using the public key of the SW process;
• and
• start sampling of the one or more performance monitoring counters when the configuration is verified.

A method comprising:

• sending a create group request to a secure performance monitoring unit (SPMU) of a processor to create a secure counter group, the create group request including identification (ID) of one or more performance monitoring counters of the SPMU to be included in the secure counter group and a public key of a cryptographic key pair for a software (SW) process;
• receiving an identifier of the secure counter group, IDs of the one or more performance monitoring counters assigned to the secure counter group, a public key of the secure counter group, and a certificate of the secure counter group;
• and
• validating the certificate of the secure counter group against a trusted root of trust of the processor.