Providing virtual secure mode with different virtual trust levels each having separate memory access protections, interrupt subsystems and private processor states

A computing device comprising:

• one or more processors;
• an operating system;
• and
• a virtual machine manager implementing a virtual secure mode having multiple virtual trust levels, the multiple virtual trust levels being organized as a hierarchy so that a higher level virtual trust level is more privileged than a lower virtual trust level, each virtual trust level having memory access protections associated with the virtual trust level that are separate from memory access protections of other of the multiple virtual trust levels, each virtual trust level having an interrupt subsystem associated with the virtual trust level that is separate from interrupt subsystems of other of the multiple virtual trust levels, and each virtual trust level having private processor state associated with the virtual trust level that is separate from private processor state of other of the multiple virtual trust levels, the virtual machine manager allowing, for each of one or more virtual processors, the virtual processor to run in any one of the multiple virtual trust levels and to access physical memory based on memory access protections configured for the one of the multiple virtual trust levels at which the virtual processor is running, the one of the multiple virtual trust levels at which the virtual processor is running being an active virtual trust level.

A computing device comprising a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing device, perform operations comprising:

• implementing, for a virtual machine, a virtual secure mode having multiple virtual trust levels, the multiple virtual trust levels being organized as a hierarchy so that a higher level virtual trust level is more privileged than a lower virtual trust level, each virtual trust level having memory access protections associated with the virtual trust level that are separate from memory access protections of other of the multiple virtual trust levels, each virtual trust level having an interrupt subsystem associated with the virtual trust level that is separate from interrupt subsystems of other of the multiple virtual trust levels, and each virtual trust level having private processor state associated with the virtual trust level that is separate from private processor state of other of the multiple virtual trust levels;
• allowing a virtual processor of the virtual machine to run in any one of the multiple virtual trust levels, the virtual processor running in only one virtual trust level at a time, the virtual trust level at which the virtual processor is running being an active virtual trust level;
• and
• allowing, by a virtual machine manager managing the virtual machine, a program running on the virtual processor to access memory of the virtual machine based on the memory access protections associated with the active virtual trust level.