How AMD CPUs attack is so Vulnerable?
A channel attack is a recently discovered, potentially dangerous side effect of the general design of AMD CPUs. In the case of this attack, a malicious software program can use the side channel characteristics of a specially designed microprocessor, to alter data packets sent between the CPU and other components on the system. In the worst-case scenario, the result could be the physical impairment of the microprocessor – or at least a significant degradation in its performance. This attack is especially dangerous because it allows a single program to read or write privileged instructions to physical memory – a dangerous privilege that attackers of all skill levels are likely to exploit to accomplish their malicious goals.
Can we stop such attacks in near future?
Since so many CPUs are vulnerable to attack, and there is no guarantee that any particular design will be fixed, system administrators must become informed about which CPUs are vulnerable and how they can secure their systems against a potential attack. This knowledge is particularly important for systems that are used in critical infrastructure environments, where the ability to stop a complete system failure is critical. In addition, a system administrator should also look into the possibility of implementing mitigation strategies to prevent malicious attacks from degrading the performance of an AMD CPU. Mitigation strategies include introducing a counter to detect, and possibly, override a potential side channel attack, and running a protection routine to reduce the vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious attacker.
