New Intel Vulnerability Hits Almost Everyone

A vulnerability in the way that Intel CPUs deal with memory could leave everyone using an Intel-based computer open to attack.

News is breaking about a massive vulnerability in Intel CPUs -- a vulnerability that could potentially allow hackers to gain access to protected system memory holding encryption keys, authentication details and other goodies. Happy New Year.
Normally, each process running on an Intel CPU has its own address space. The system has an address space separate from all of the process address spaces. In normal operation, processes may be able to see parts of the kernel address space to complete necessary operations, but they cant change data in the kernel space. And the ability for a process to see into the kernel space is carefully controlled for both security and system stability reasons.
Because of the flaw, first recognized by a research group from Graz University of Technology, Austria, obliquely discussed in a paper titled
KASLR is DEAD: Long Live KASLR
, [
Authors Note
: KASLR is Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization, a technique that increases security by frequently moving kernel addresses around.
] the separation between the user (process) space and kernel space can become very porous. And then it gets worse.
Modern Intel CPUs boost performance by trying to anticipate what processes will need, essentially pre-executing commands to make data available as quickly as possible. By carefully manipulating these commands executed ahead of time, a hacker can
gain access to the contents of kernel memory
that they shouldnt be allowed to see. And then it gets worse.
The first step down the path toward worse is ubiquity: It doesnt matter which operating system youre using -- its going to have to be patched in order to deal with this vulnerability. This is the rare case in which Linux users cant be smug, nor can MacOS users or Windows users. And those who keep their systems rigorously updated are no safer than those still running a decade-old system. In the words of REM, Everybody hurts.
Now, theres a glimmer of good news, in that the OS can be patched to shut off the technology that leads to the vulnerability, but that medicine comes with a foul side-effect: Your patched systems will be slower. How much slower? Depending on precisely which applications and processes youre running,
anywhere from 20% to 33% slower
. Let that sink in for a moment.
The only people who dont have to worry at all about this vulnerability are those running systems powered by AMD processors, because
they do things differently
when it comes to memory page table isolation and speculative operations/data references. Of course, AMD processors have had their own security issues in the past, so those system owners should probably be a bit circumspect in their gloating.
For those keeping score, this vulnerability exploit is similar in many ways to the
rowhammer bug
used to gain access to the contents of DRAM. Its likely that we will see more of these hardware-based exploits as operating system and application programmers get better at testing and correcting flaws before they hit general availability.
This story is going to continue to develop, so stay tuned to us here at Security Now. And let us know if you hear any news about this flaw, especially if you hear reliable information on exploits beyond the current proof-of-concept attacks seen so far.
Welcome to 2018 and fasten your seatbelts -- its going to be a rocky year.
Related posts:
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CLKSCREW Hack Breaks Hardware With Software
BlueBorne Threatens 5 Billion Bluetooth Devices
— Curtis Franklin is the editor of
SecurityNow.com
. Follow him on Twitter
@kg4gwa
.

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New Intel Vulnerability Hits Almost Everyone