Intel SGX is really a big gift to security researchers, second only to speculative execution and friends. Intel is selling it as a way to keep secrets safe inside the processor against attackers with root/hypervisor software access or even physical access. Of course, a bevy of attacks in the recent months have demonstrated that this isn’t really achievable given the extremely large attack surface.
SGX has opened Intel up to physical attacks on the chip in a way that really hasn’t been interesting in the past. Previously attacking a CPU physically wouldn’t give you any more capabilities than you already had (with unlimited ability to tamper I/O and memory). Now, physically attacking the CPU can be used to reveal SGX secrets or mess with SGX computations. Expect a lot more attacks like this to come out in the future!
SGX has opened Intel up to physical attacks on the chip in a way that really hasn’t been interesting in the past. Previously attacking a CPU physically wouldn’t give you any more capabilities than you already had (with unlimited ability to tamper I/O and memory). Now, physically attacking the CPU can be used to reveal SGX secrets or mess with SGX computations. Expect a lot more attacks like this to come out in the future!