'Plundervolt' attack against Intel Core CPUs prompts fix that can turn off CPU voltage tweaks

A new attack on Intel’s CPUs, called Plunderbolt, may have an unforeseen consequence. The mitigation that fixes it appears to lock the CPU voltage to default settings, possibly preventing users from undervolting or overclocking them.

According to the researchers who authored the paper in question, every mobile and desktop Intel Core processor since the sixth-generation “Skylake” onward that supports Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is vulnerable to the software attack, which injects faults into the processor package by very briefly decreasing the processor voltage. Injecting these faults can introduce errors into otherwise secure code, or reproduce cryptographic keys by what the researchers call negligible computational efforts.

To read this article in full, please click here

from PCWorld https://ift.tt/2E7zv6j