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New research describes two vulnerabilities that can affect SSD drives utilizing MLC technology: “program interference” and “read disturb.” In the first, an attacker can corrupt data or reduce the lifespan of a drive by writing data with a certain pattern: specifically, the data pattern makes an MLC's programming logic cause 4.9 more errors than usual. For the second type of attack, exploit code can force an SSD to perform a large number of writes in a short period of time, which also results in data corruption and degradation of the drive’s storage abilities. I’m going to assume these attacks are more complicated than described, since SSDs can stand up pretty well even when atypical amounts of data are being written.
The first generation of SSD storage drives used a technology called single-level cell (SLC), which used one NAND flash memory chip to store one bit of information, with "electrically charged" standing for a binary one, and "not electrically charged" standing for a binary zero. As with all technology, things evolved over the years, and scientists and SSD vendors realized they could integrate a floating gate transistor into NAND flash memory chip, which gave them the ability to store two bits of information in the form of a range of charge voltage values representing the binary numbers of 00, 01, 10, and 11. This new technology is called multi-level cell (MLC), and has become prevalent in all SSDs since around 2015.
The first generation of SSD storage drives used a technology called single-level cell (SLC), which used one NAND flash memory chip to store one bit of information, with "electrically charged" standing for a binary one, and "not electrically charged" standing for a binary zero. As with all technology, things evolved over the years, and scientists and SSD vendors realized they could integrate a floating gate transistor into NAND flash memory chip, which gave them the ability to store two bits of information in the form of a range of charge voltage values representing the binary numbers of 00, 01, 10, and 11. This new technology is called multi-level cell (MLC), and has become prevalent in all SSDs since around 2015.
