Resource layout randomization for GPU execution: United States Patent 9972065

The embodiments disclosed herein relate to the field of graphics processing and, without limitation, the use of hardware and software in the memory layout of graphics items to prevent the malicious use of graphics resources. In greater particularity, embodiments of the disclosure provide varying software and hardware arrangements for transforming an allocated resource address that is deterministic and often visible to software in the system into an effective address that is neither deterministic nor visible to most software. For example, in an embodiment of the disclosure, software in the user-space of the operating system may use allocated addresses to map certain graphics resources for GPU access. When those allocated addresses are presented to the kernel, the addresses are transformed to effective addresses, which may be both randomized (e.g., not easily predictable from the allocated address) and/or obscured from the user space processes.