Security? What security? Say hello to 'LVI' (Load Value Injection), a new class of' transient-execution attacks' exploiting flaws in modern processors and it defeats all existing countermeasures.
Oh hell. This comes shortly after Intel had another one announced that was 'unfixable', plus one for AMD too and now this all in the space of a month. Rough time right now, for Intel specifically on this one.
LVI turns previous data extraction attacks around, like Meltdown, Foreshadow, ZombieLoad, RIDL and Fallout, and defeats all existing mitigations. Instead of directly leaking data from the victim to the attacker, we proceed in the opposite direction: we smuggle — "inject" — the attacker's data through hidden processor buffers into a victim program and hijack transient execution to acquire sensitive information, such as the victim’s fingerprints or passwords.
It's serious, as they claim the difficulty in solving it is much harder than all previous attacks and will require some computationally expensive software patches. They say it may "slow down Intel SGX enclave computations 2 up to 19 times"—ouch.
They give a quick 4-step process to LVI:
- Poison a hidden processor buffer with attacker values.
- Induce a faulting or assisted load in the victim program.
- The attacker's value is transiently injected into code gadgets following the faulting load in the victim program.
- Side channels may leave secret-dependent traces, before the processor detects the mistake and rolls back all operations.
You can also see a demo video below:
![YouTube Thumbnail](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/cache/youtube_thumbs/6e20907bba9953ca7bfbfc449ed07ef2.jpg)
Direct Link
What about AMD? Well, their current assessment is that LVI only applies to Intel processors that have SGX tech. However, it can affect any other processor if they're vulnerable to a Meltdown-type data leakage.
See more about it on the official site and the research paper is found here. You can see the official Intel security advisory here, plus a list of affected processor products here. Additionally, Intel have their own deep dive here.
Quoting: PopeRigbyFor now PowerPC is your best bet. It is the only 100% open architecture, that is usable today and properly performant. Risc-V on regular consumer computers probably won't happen until we reach the year of the Linux desktop.Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThis is why we need another player in the x86 CPU market: Nvidia
I'd love to see RISC-V be a viable desktop architecture. We need fully open source CPUs to help with security issues like this.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm sure the Chinese will now be doing a crash program
As sure as Planet Nibiru, FEMA guillotines, and the Mayan Calendar, combined , no doubt.
Last edited by Duck Hunt-Pr0 on 11 March 2020 at 1:29 am UTC
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThis is why we need another player in the x86 CPU market: Nvidia
My day to day hasn't changed much since switching to PowerPC. x86 is fully locked down with licensing constraints and so any x86 instructions newer than 20 years require any aspiring x86 vendors-to-be to bow down to Intel (and by extension, to Hollywood and friends).
Oh and also that detail about a master CPU embedded in all x86 chips which has full access and control over the end user-controllable portion. I would urge everyone here to at least consider keeping a RISC-V, PPC or any other freer architecture box around, for freedom's sake.
Quoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0Among all the things I've been saying around here the last day or so, it didn't occur to me that this would be controversial. WTF?Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm sure the Chinese will now be doing a crash program
As sure as Planet Nibiru, FEMA guillotines, and the Mayan Calendar, combined , no doubt.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 11 March 2020 at 5:10 am UTC
Quoting: SirLootALotWhat about ARM stuff? Could that move up the food chain?Quoting: PopeRigbyFor now PowerPC is your best bet. It is the only 100% open architecture, that is usable today and properly performant. Risc-V on regular consumer computers probably won't happen until we reach the year of the Linux desktop.Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThis is why we need another player in the x86 CPU market: Nvidia
I'd love to see RISC-V be a viable desktop architecture. We need fully open source CPUs to help with security issues like this.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhile it is possible to build a ARM-computer without blobs the ARM architecture is not free. So you could not build and design your own CPU, Chipset and Mainboard-circuitry without ARM licenseing it to you and I am only aware of one commercially available ARM computer, that is 100% FLOSS. This used to be the case fore PowerPC too but since the competition from Risc-V is here you can now build your own PowerPC without the need for IBMs blessing.Quoting: SirLootALotWhat about ARM stuff? Could that move up the food chain?Quoting: PopeRigbyFor now PowerPC is your best bet. It is the only 100% open architecture, that is usable today and properly performant. Risc-V on regular consumer computers probably won't happen until we reach the year of the Linux desktop.Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThis is why we need another player in the x86 CPU market: Nvidia
I'd love to see RISC-V be a viable desktop architecture. We need fully open source CPUs to help with security issues like this.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0Among all the things I've been saying around here the last day or so, it didn't occur to me that this would be controversial. WTF?Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm sure the Chinese will now be doing a crash program
As sure as Planet Nibiru, FEMA guillotines, and the Mayan Calendar, combined , no doubt.
I may or may not have misread your post, and not quite understood what you meant by "crash program".
Did you mean the Chinese will be looking for a way to intentionally crash Intel cpu's ?
/me drink and skim alot :/
Last edited by Duck Hunt-Pr0 on 12 March 2020 at 6:31 pm UTC
Quoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0What Dedale said: I meant the Chinese would seek to rapidly develop and produce their own X86 CPUs so as not to be dependent on North American suppliers. Since this is already I believe one of the stated goals of their "Made in China 2025" schtick, and since various events have shown trade to be surprisingly fragile, this still seems to me pretty likely.Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0Among all the things I've been saying around here the last day or so, it didn't occur to me that this would be controversial. WTF?Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm sure the Chinese will now be doing a crash program
As sure as Planet Nibiru, FEMA guillotines, and the Mayan Calendar, combined , no doubt.
I may or may not have misread your post, and not quite understood what you meant by "crash program".
Did you mean the Chinese will be looking for a way to intentionally crash Intel cpu's ?
/me drink and skim alot :/
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