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Intel CPUs Vulnerable To New Spectre-Like Attack, BranchScope

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Security researchers have discovered a new wave of attacks called BranchScope. Yet we're not done with the Meltdown and Spectre security flaws that put billions of devices at risk of attacks. 
 
BranchScope : It's a new side-channel attack discovered by four security researchers from College of William and Mary, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, University of California Riverside, and Binghamton University, which could affect devices powered by Intel processors and which may be immune to the <a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/meltdown">Meltdown </a>and Spectre mitigations. 
 
According to their <a href="http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~nael/pubs/asplos18.pdf">paper</a>, even if they are a bit more sophisticated, the BranchScope attacks can do the same damage as the <a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/spectre">Spectre </a>and Meltdown flaws, in the way that an attacker can exploit the security vulnerability to retrieve sensitive data from the unpatched system, including passwords and encryption keys, by manipulating the shared directional branch predictor. 
 
"The success of the attack largely depends on the ability to perform branch manipulations with precise timing," reads the paper. "The attacker controlled OS can easily manipulate victim execution timings. For example, the attacker can configure the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC) in such a way that enclave code is interrupted after several instructions are executed." 
 
Sandy Bridge, Haswell, and Skylake processors affected The researchers have demonstrated the BranchScope attack on three recent Intel Core i5 and Core i7 x86_64 (64-bit) processor families, including Sandy Bridge, Haswell, and Skylake. The worst part of these attacks is that BranchScope can be extended, offering attackers additional tools to perform more advanced and flexible attacks that target even applications running inside Intel SGX (Software Guard Extensions) enclaves. 
 
In their paper, which is a must read if you want to learn everything there is to know about the BranchScope vulnerability, the security researchers have proposed software- and hardware-based mitigations for the BranchScope attacks. Therefore, we expect Intel to release new microcode updates for its processors that also fully patch the <a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/branchscope">BranchScope </a>vulnerability, so make sure you always keep your systems up-to-date. 
 
“We have been working with these researchers and have determined the method they describe is similar to previously known side channel exploits. We anticipate that existing software mitigations for previously known side channel exploits, such as the use of side channel resistant cryptography, will be similarly effective against the method described in this paper. We believe close partnership with the research community is one of the best ways to protect customers and their data, and we are appreciative of the work from these researchers.” 
 
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Security researchers have discovered a new wave of attacks called BranchScope . Yet we're not done with the Meltdown and Spectre se...

Intel processors will use hardware-based protections against Meltdown and Spectre 2

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Intel has officially pushed out microcode updates with Spectre and Meltdown mitigations for all of the processors it launched in the past five years. 
 
In addition to this, the company’s CEO announced new, redesigned processor lines that will start shipping later this year and will include hardware-based protection for Meltdown (exploiting CVE-2017-5754, a rogue cata cache load flaw) and variant 2 of Spectre (exploiting CVE-2017-5715, a branch target injection <a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/Vulnerability">vulnerability</a>). 
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“While [Spectre] Variant 1 will continue to be addressed via software mitigations, we are making changes to our hardware design to further address the other two,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/advancing-security-silicon-level/">said</a>.</blockquote>
“We have redesigned parts of the processor to introduce new levels of protection through partitioning that will protect against both Variants 2 [<a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/spectre">Spectre</a>] and 3 [<a href="http://www.hackerschronicle.com/search/label/meltdown">Meltdown</a>]. Think of this partitioning as additional ‘protective walls’ between applications and user privilege levels to create an obstacle for bad actors. These changes will begin with our next-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Cascade Lake) as well as 8th Generation Intel Core processors expected to ship in the second half of 2018. ” 
 
He did not offer more details about these protections, but the video included in the announcement says that the Spectre variant 2 fixes will make it so that attackers can’t influence the path the speculative execution process and use misdirections to gain access to sensitive data. The solution, Intel says, “retains the many benefits of speculative execution, while addressing the threat of variant 2.” 
 
Organizations and users who don’t want to spend money on new processors will have to make do with the firmware updates for the old ones – and suffer some performance impacts. 
 
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We have now released <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/microcode-update-guidance.pdf">microcode updates</a> for 100 percent of Intel products launched in the past five years that require protection against the side-channel method vulnerabilities discovered by Google,” Krzanich noted.</blockquote>
 
It is on industry partners like Microsoft to implement them via firmware and software updates. 
 
Krzanich, of course, advised everyone to implement the updates as they are made available.</div>

CVE-2017-5715 Hacking News intel Malwares meltdown spectre Intel processors will use hardware-based protections against Meltdown and Spectre 2

Intel has officially pushed out microcode updates with Spectre and Meltdown mitigations for all of the processors it launched in the pas...

Intel CPUs Vulnerable To New Spectre-Like Attack, BranchScope

Intel processors will use hardware-based protections against Meltdown and Spectre 2

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