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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:

  1. Poison a hidden processor buffer with attacker values.
  2. Induce a faulting or assisted load in the victim program.
  3. The attacker's value is transiently injected into code gadgets following the faulting load in the victim program.
  4. 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:

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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.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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21 comments
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SirLootALot Mar 11, 2020
Quoting: PopeRigby
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.
For 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.
Duck Hunt-Pr0 Mar 11, 2020
Now i feel even happier having gone to AMD :D
Duck Hunt-Pr0 Mar 11, 2020
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
Koopacabras Mar 11, 2020
wait so it attacks basically Icelake the 10th gen... so newer processors are more vulnerable! well done Intel engineers! 🙃
GustyGhost Mar 11, 2020
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.
Purple Library Guy Mar 11, 2020
Quoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0
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.
Among 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?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 11 March 2020 at 5:10 am UTC
Purple Library Guy Mar 11, 2020
Quoting: SirLootALot
Quoting: PopeRigby
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.
For 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.
What about ARM stuff? Could that move up the food chain?
SirLootALot Mar 11, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: SirLootALot
Quoting: PopeRigby
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.
For 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.
What about ARM stuff? Could that move up the food chain?
While 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.
Duck Hunt-Pr0 Mar 12, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Duck Hunt-Pr0
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.
Among 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?

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
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