> Is there any guarantee that this "silicon support" is any safer than the software?
Safety and security claims are only meaningful in the context of threat models. As described in the Xen/uXen/AX video, pKVM and AWS Nitro security talks, one goal is to reduce the size, function and complexity of open-source code running at the highest processor privilege levels [1], minimizing dependency on closed firmware/SMM/TrustZone. Nitro moved some functions (e.g. I/O virtualization) to separate processors, e.g. SmartNIC/DPU. Apple used an Arm T2 secure enclave processor for encryption and some I/O paths, when their main processor was still x86. OCP Caliptra RoT requires OSS firmware signed by both the OEM and hyperscaler customer. It's a never-ending process of reducing attack surface, prioritized by business context.
> hardware would be subject to exactly the same bugs as software would, except it will be hard to update of course
Some "hardware" functions can be updated via microcode, which has been used to mitigate speculative execution vulnerabilities, at the cost of performance.
Safety and security claims are only meaningful in the context of threat models. As described in the Xen/uXen/AX video, pKVM and AWS Nitro security talks, one goal is to reduce the size, function and complexity of open-source code running at the highest processor privilege levels [1], minimizing dependency on closed firmware/SMM/TrustZone. Nitro moved some functions (e.g. I/O virtualization) to separate processors, e.g. SmartNIC/DPU. Apple used an Arm T2 secure enclave processor for encryption and some I/O paths, when their main processor was still x86. OCP Caliptra RoT requires OSS firmware signed by both the OEM and hyperscaler customer. It's a never-ending process of reducing attack surface, prioritized by business context.
> hardware would be subject to exactly the same bugs as software would, except it will be hard to update of course
Some "hardware" functions can be updated via microcode, which has been used to mitigate speculative execution vulnerabilities, at the cost of performance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_execution_CPU_vulner...