New Plundervolt attack impacts Intel CPUs

erek

erek

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Ouch.

"For example, Plundervolt can be used to induce bugs in the encryption algorithms/operations performed inside SGX, resulting in encrypted content that's easy to crack once it leaves the SGX enclave, allowing attackers to recover the encryption key that was used to encrypt the data in the first place."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-plundervolt-attack-impacts-intel-cpus/
 
From the article:
Plundervolt is not a remote attack
But despite sounding like a really bad bug, Plundervolt is not as severe as it sounds. For starters, Oswald tells ZDNet that Plundervolt can't be exploited remotely, such as luring a user to a website and executing the attack via JavaScript.

Plundervolt needs to run from an app on an infected host with root or admin privileges. This is not an impossible attack scenario, but this will require some social engineering and additional exploits -- if Plundervolt is to be used in the wild.

Additionally, Plundervolt doesn't work from within virtualized environments, such as virtual machines and cloud computing services, where the host OS usually restricts the guest OS from accessing the interface that manages the CPU's voltage and frequency.
Click to expand...

Meh.
 
From the article:
Intel has also released microcode (CPU firmware) and BIOS updates today that address the Plundervolt attack.
Click to expand...
While this is a good thing that Intel has released a firmware update for this so quickly, just, holy shit, how many more of these firmware updates are there going to be?!
In 30+ years of computing and technology, I have never seen anything like this for any other architecture, platform, etc.

At a minimum, kudos to Intel for releasing a quick fix.
 
Man, this just doesn't stop does it? Anyone see the potential to weaponize this?
 
Red Falcon said:
From the article:

While this is a good thing that Intel has released a firmware update for this so quickly, just, holy shit, how many more of these firmware updates are there going to be?!
In 30+ years of computing and technology, I have never seen anything like this for any other architecture, platform, etc.

At a minimum, kudos to Intel for releasing a quick fix.
Click to expand...

Some of the earlier exploits were in CPU's for decades, apparently. The issue is no one ever looked. Once someone found one, the flood gates opened to find many.

It's like in the military during a kit inspection. If they find one of two things, they mention it and move on... But if they start finding 4, 5, 6 and more, well that "4" quickly becomes 50 and you're in trouble.

Same scenario.. they were there. No one looked. Once they did, doom and gloom.
 
I need to get into the CPU business so I can make a CPU and then bake vulnerabilities into them......... and sell access to the vulnerabilities to the highest bidder.
 
auntjemima said:
Some of the earlier exploits were in CPU's for decades, apparently. The issue is no one ever looked. Once someone found one, the flood gates opened to find many.

It's like in the military during a kit inspection. If they find one of two things, they mention it and move on... But if they start finding 4, 5, 6 and more, well that "4" quickly becomes 50 and you're in trouble.

Same scenario.. they were there. No one looked. Once they did, doom and gloom.
Click to expand...
That's not cool, my Pentium Pro systems from 1995 should have had patches! :D
 
Plundervolt needs to run from an app on an infected host with root or admin privileges.


I don't see how that's meh... a virus could do that. What about a virus leveraging e.g. power management/overclocking software or similar?

Snowdog said:
This is not really a serious problem for anyone, as you need physical access to your machine, and into the bios, to attempt it.
Click to expand...
I didn't know I needed to go into the bios to have admin privileges for a program?
The bios is where you can turn off access to it. If it's not turned off or patched, the bios doesn't matter.
 
Azrak said:
From the article:
Oswald tells ZDNet that Plundervolt can't be exploited remotely

Meh.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: Like we've never seen any kind of code run remotely with admin privileges.
The reporting better get it straight. The guy is misleading ZDNet.

"While the exploit requires the execution of privileged code, it doesn't rely on physical access, raising the possibility of remote attacks."

"The researchers privately reported the vulnerability to Intel ahead of Tuesday's publication. In response, Intel has released a microcode and BIOS updates that mitigate attacks by locking voltage to the default settings. Readers using Intel Core processors from Skylake onward and some platforms based on Xeon E should install INTEL-SA-00289 once it becomes available from respective computer makers. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2019-11157"
 
Red Falcon said:
From the article:

While this is a good thing that Intel has released a firmware update for this so quickly, just, holy shit, how many more of these firmware updates are there going to be?!
In 30+ years of computing and technology, I have never seen anything like this for any other architecture, platform, etc.

At a minimum, kudos to Intel for releasing a quick fix.
Click to expand...

Well they did work on it for 6 months while the people that found it kept it quite. If Intel had found this themselves I doubt it would have ever got fixed.
 
ChadD said:
Well they did work on it for 6 months while the people that found it kept it quite. If Intel had found this themselves I doubt it would have ever got fixed.
Click to expand...
Well, I suppose 6 months is "quick" for them. :p
 
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