INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Time to reset your &days since last major chip vulnerability& counter back to zero.
Security researchers have found another flaw in Intel
processors — this time it a new variant of the Zombieload attack they discovered earlier this year, but targeting Intel latest family of
chips, Cascade Lake.
Intel calls the vulnerability Transactional Asynchronous Abort, or TAA
It similar to the microarchitectural data sampling vulnerabilities that were the focus of earlier chip-based side-channel attacks, but TAA
applies only to newer chips.
The new variant of the Zombieload attack allows hackers with physical access to a device the ability to read
occasionally sensitive data stored in the processor
The vulnerability is found in how the processor tries to predict the outcome of future commands
This technique, known as speculative execution, makes the processor run faster, but its flawed design makes it possible for attackers to
extract potentially sensitive data.
Zombieload was discovered by the same researchers who found Meltdown and Spectre, a set of flaws that
could be used to pick out secrets — like passwords — from the processor
It was believed later chip architectures, like Cascade Lake, were toughened against speculative execution attacks, while Intel rolled out
software patches to reduce the attack surface.
Neither of the other vulnerabilities in the same family as Zombieload — notably Fallout and
RIDL — work on Cascade Lake, they added.
But the researchers said that Intel efforts to change the chip design in Cascade Lake are ¬
sufficient& to protect against these kinds of side-channel attacks.
The same researchers warned Intel about the vulnerability in April —
as it did with the other flaws they discovered that were patched a month later
Intel took until this month to investigate, the researchers said.
Intel released patches again for its vulnerable chips on Tuesday,
acknowledging that its newest chips are vulnerable to the newest Zombieload variant
But the chip making giant recognizes that the mitigations &may not completely prevent the inference of data through a side channel using
these techniques.&
The chip maker said there have been &no reports& of real-world exploits of the vulnerabilities.
New secret-spilling flaw
affects almost every Intel chip since 2011
