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Showing posts with label Intel Chips. Show all posts
Side Channel Attacks
AMD CPU vulnerabilities Cryptographic Information Security CVE vulnerability Data Breach Intel Chips Side Channel Attacks

Intel and AMD CPU Trageted by the New 'Hertzbleed' Remote Side-Channel Attack

A group of academic researchers has found a potential side-channel method that uses a CPU timing hack to allow attackers to remotely retrieve critical information from a target network. The problem, which has been dubbed Hertzbleed by a team of researchers from the University of Texas, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Washington, is induced by dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), power and thermal management feature used to conserve power and reduce the amount of heat generated by a chip.  

"Periodic CPU frequency adjustments depend on current CPU power usage under particular situations, and these adjustments immediately translate to execution time variations (since 1 hertz Equals 1 cycle per second)," the researchers stated. An intruder can exploit cryptographic software and get crucial cryptographic keys by analyzing these temporal differences – in some circumstances, even a remote attacker can detect the variances.

SIKE, or Supersingular Isogeny Key Encapsulation, a post-quantum key encapsulation technology utilized by firms like Microsoft and Cloudflare, was used to demonstrate the assault. In reaction to the discoveries, both AMD (CVE-2022-23823) and Intel (CVE-2022-24436) have released independent advisories, with the latter stating that Hertzbleed affects all Intel processors due to unauthorized access. 
There are no patches available. 

Intel has issued two customer advisories in response to the Hertzbleed attacks. All of Intel's chips are affected, as per the chipmaker. While no CPU firmware changes have been released, the company has provided cryptography recommendations for software developers to "harden its libraries and applications from frequency throttling information leaking."

Hertzbleed has been the subject of an AMD alert; several desktops, mobile, Chromebook, and server processors have been identified as being affected by the bug, as per the company. AMD has also recommended that software developers implement defenses.

It's not the first time that new data theft techniques from Intel chips have been discovered. Two Hertzbleed co-authors showed an "on-chip, cross-core" side-channel attack targeting Intel Coffee Lake and Skylake CPUs' ring interconnect in March 2021. The researchers stated, "The message is that current cryptography engineering approaches for writing constant-time code are no longer sufficient to guarantee constant-time execution of software on newer, variable-frequency CPUs."
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Intel Chips IoT devices Security Researchers Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Laptops, Vehicles and Medical Gadgets Could all be Vulnerable to an Intel Chip Flaw

 

Intel Processors have a vulnerability that could compromise laptops, vehicles, and embedded systems, according to researchers. The vulnerability (CVE-2021-0146) allows unauthorized users with physical access to gain elevated privileges on the system by enabling testing or debugging modes on multiple Intel processor lines.

In terms of scope, the vulnerability affects the Pentium, Celeron, and Atom processors of the Apollo Lake, Gemini Lake, and Gemini Lake Refresh platforms. Laptops, mobile devices, embedded systems, medical equipment, and a range of internet of things (IoT) offerings are all powered by these chips. 

“According to a study by Mordor Intelligence, Intel ranks fourth in the IoT chip market, while its Intel Atom E3900 series IoT processors, which also contain the CVE-2021-0146 vulnerability, are used by car manufacturers in more than 30 models, including, according to unofficial sources, in Tesla’s Model 3,” Positive Technologies noted in a writeup. 

Mark Ermolov, Dmitry Sklyarov (both from Positive Technologies), and Maxim Goryachy (an independent researcher) discovered the bug, which received a score of 7.1 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability-severity scale.

“One example of a real threat is lost or stolen laptops that contain confidential information in encrypted form,” says Mark Ermolov. “Using this vulnerability, an attacker can extract the encryption key and gain access to information within the laptop. The bug can also be exploited in targeted attacks across the supply chain. For example, an employee of an Intel processor-based device supplier could, in theory, extract the Intel CSME firmware key and deploy spyware that security software would not detect." 

This vulnerability is especially problematic since it makes it easier to recover the root encryption key used in Intel PTT (Platform Trust Technology) and Intel EPID (Enhanced Privacy ID) technologies in systems designed to prevent unlawful copying of digital information. For digital rights management, a number of Amazon e-book models, for example, use Intel EPID-based protection. An intruder might use this flaw to steal the root EPID key from a device (e-book), then use Intel EPID technology to download electronic contents in file form, copy, and distribute them, according to Ermolov.

Manufacturers should be more cautious in their approach for providing security for debug mechanisms in the future to minimize difficulties and probable bypassing of built-in protection, according to researchers.
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Hacking Intel Chips Intel Security Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Intel Chips Now Exploitable? Sensitive Data Could Be Compromised By Reducing Chips' Voltage!



Hackers can now allegedly, exploit Intel chips via voltage alterations which could lead to a messed up flow of electricity only to weaken the security mechanisms of the chips.

Two research teams from Europe and America had realized that this disruption in the voltage could cause sensitive information stored on the Intel chips to leak using the “Secure Guard Extensions” feature.

The researchers were asked to keep these facts concealed for the last half-year. Intel then sent out updates of its firmware to thwart any possibilities of attack.

“Plundervolt”, per source is the technique named by the researchers which comprises of planting malicious software on the target device to temporarily reduce the voltage of its electrical flow to the Intel chip.

The drop in voltage referred to as “undervolting” generally lets genuine users to conserve power when not needed and to vary the voltage to “overclock” the processor for more strenuous tasks.

But reportedly, by transitorily “undervolting” a processor and timing it accordingly could easily aid a hacker to make the chip dance to their tunes and falter, in turn revealing sensitive data stored within the “SGX enclave”.

Per the researchers, the CPU voltage when reduced could cause a “computation” error in the Intel chips. A “bit-flip” or a “fault injection” in the chips can change a “zero” to “one” on the SGX enclave.

In these potentially exploitable chips, if cryptographic computations are done, the “secret key” could be easily discover-able. The entire chip’s security would become times weaker, leading the data to decipher easily.

The attack in question is undoubtedly not easy to execute. It requires the target computer to already have the malware installed on it by the attacker. The SGS feature of Intel which was vastly advertised as corruption and threat proof in terms of sensitive data. This attack happens to present a startling position of compromise.

ARM Chips other than Intel’s were also experimented upon by artificially fluctuating their voltage much like “Plundervolt” to destabilize the security of the processors.

Intel chips haven’t always had a good record in ensuring security if the processors. Per reports, previous attacks “Spectre” and “Foreshadow” also abused the “speculative execution feature” of the chips way before the patched were released.

“Return-oriented programming” is another technique that could be used to exploit the chips which could make an “already planted” malware invisible to the anti-virus software.

Intel though, did send out an update for its Chips’ firmware which helps the user to freeze the voltage settings to cancel out any further possibilities of the above-mentioned attack.

Although, the way of counteracting the issue of “over-clocking” and the details as to the elaborate details of the update haven’t been sent out by Intel, yet. All that could be said is that keep the processors well updates and all patched up.
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