ZombieLoad: Researchers discover New Hardware Vulnerability in Modern Intel Processors
A brand new processor hardware vulnerability affecting modern Intel CPUs has been uncovered by Bitdefender researchers Coined “ZombieLoad side-channel processor”, the vulnerability defeats the architectural safeguards of the processor and allows unprivileged user-mode applications to steal kernel-mode memory information processed on the affected computer.
A Concerning Impact on Cloud Services
The new vulnerability can be exploited by attackers to leak privileged information data from an area of the processor’s memory meant to be strictly off-limits. This flaw could be used in highly targeted attacks that would normally require system-wide privileges or deep subversion of the operating system. The flaw has an extremely large impact on cloud service providers and within multi-tenant environments, as potentially a ‘bad neighbour’ could leverage this flaw to read data belonging to other tenants.
The proof of concept code has been shared privately with the vendor, was said to have been successfully tested on Intel Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake and Kaby Lake microarchitectures by the researchers.
Vulnerability CVEs
Remediation
Since this vulnerability revolves around a hardware design flaw, microcode patches have been available to remediate the flaw. Currently, Bitdefender and industry partners are working on fixes implemented at the hypervisor level.
Industry Security Patches
Industry Security Patches
- https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/advisory/adv190013
- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4093836/summary-of-intel-microcode-updates
- https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/AWS-2019-004/
- https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210107
- https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210108
- https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/mds
Similarities with Meltdown and Spectre
Side channel attacks based on speculative execution was in the news with the identification of Meltdown and Spectre CPU vulnerabilities back in early 2018. Since then, variants of side-channel attacks have been occasionally discovered and partially mitigated via microcode and operating system patches. However, as this is a flaw that stems from a hardware design issue, a general fix to plug the hardware vulnerability is impossible.
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