Shivaranjan.com

In this post we shall discuss on how to find out if you the processor or CPU of your computer supports hardware Virtualization and Hardware DEP.

What is Hardware Virtualization in x86 processors (CPU):

x86 virtualization is the method by which x86-based “guest” operating systems can run within another “host” x86 operating system, with little or no modification of the guest OS.

What is Hardware DEP?

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature included in modern Microsoft Windows operating systems that is intended to prevent an application or service from executing code from a non-executable memory region. This helps prevent certain exploits that store code via a buffer overflow, for example. DEP runs in two modes: hardware-enforced DEP for CPUs that can mark memory pages as non executable, and software-enforced DEP with a limited prevention for CPUs that do not have hardware support.

Hardware-enforced DEP enables the NX bit on compatible CPUs, through the automatic use of PAE kernel in 32-bit Windows and the native support on 64-bit kernels. Windows Vista DEP works by marking certain parts of memory as being intended to hold only data, which the NX or XD bit enabled processor then understands as non-executable. This helps prevent buffer overflow attacks from succeeding.

How to find out if your processor or CPU supports hardware virtualization and hardware data execution and prevention (DEP)

1. Download the software tool called Securable from here.

2. This tool does not require any installation so directly run the .exe file that you downloaded. Now you will presented a screen in which the virtualization and DEP capabilities of your processor can be found out.

If you see NO listed for hardware DEP and hardware virtualization then it means that your processor does not support those features. In addition to that if you use this tool you will also find out if your processor supports 64bit capabilities.