Intel Principal Engineer for x86 memory safety

Michael LeMay

About me

I am an architect for x86 Memory Tagging Technology (formerly known as ChkTag)

I have contributed to shipping processor security technologies, including Control-Flow Enforcement Technology (CET) and VT-Redirect Protection (VT-rp). Such technologies are important for mitigating AI-generated exploits.

See Experience for additional information.

Education

M.S. & Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
B.S. in Computer Science, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Featured publications

Shravan Narayan, Tal Garfinkel, Evan Johnson, Zachary Yedidia, Yingchen Wang, Andrew Brown, Anjo Vahldiek-Oberwagner, Michael LeMay, Wenyong Huang, Xin Wang, Mingqiu Sun, Dean Tullsen, Deian Stefan (2025). Segue & ColorGuard: Optimizing SFI Performance and Scalability on Modern Architectures. Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS). PDF
Bharath Namboothiry, David Durham, Christoph Dobraunig, Michael LeMay (2024). Cryptographic Memory Tagging: Towards Stateless Integrity. Hardware and Architectural Support for Security and Privacy (HASP). PDF
Shravan Narayan, Tal Garfinkel, Mohammadkazem Taram, Joey Rudek, Daniel Moghimi, Evan Johnson, Chris Fallin, Anjo Vahldiek-Oberwagner, Michael LeMay, Ravi Sahita, Dean Tullsen, Deian Stefan (2024). Hardware-Assisted Fault Isolation: Going Beyond the Limits of Software-Based Sandboxing (top picks 🏆). IEEE Micro Top Picks 2024.
Shravan Narayan, Tal Garfinkel, Mohammadkazem Taram, Joey Rudek, Daniel Moghimi, Evan Johnson, Chris Fallin, Anjo Vahldiek-Oberwagner, Michael LeMay, Ravi Sahita, Dean Tullsen, Deian Stefan (2023). Going beyond the Limits of SFI: Flexible and Secure Hardware-Assisted In-Process Isolation with HFI (distinguished paper award, Intel Hardware Security Academic Award honorable mention 🏆). Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS). PDF
Michael LeMay, Joydeep Rakshit, Sergej Deutsch, David M. Durham, Santosh Ghosh, Anant Nori, Jayesh Gaur, Andrew Weiler, Salmin Sultana, Karanvir Grewal, Sreenivas Subramoney (2021). Cryptographic Capability Computing. MICRO. PDF

All publications

Talks

Keynote: Lightening the Shadows: Metadata-Light Exploit Mitigation Based on Novel Cryptography and X86 · Nov 2, 2024

Posts

I post a mix of professional and personal notes. Separate Atom feeds are generated for each category, and there is also a combined feed:

Combining tools to detach Delta single-hole kitchen faucets · Dec 27, 2022
Adding a heat pump alongside a natural gas furnace with tight duct turns · Apr 4, 2022
Gardening in a suburb of Portland, Oregon · Apr 18, 2020