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Battering RAM Attack Bypasses Intel and AMD Cloud Security Protections

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2 unique sources, 3 articles

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A group of academics from KU Leuven and the University of Birmingham have demonstrated a new vulnerability called Battering RAM. This vulnerability bypasses the latest defenses on Intel and AMD cloud processors, compromising Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) and AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization with Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP). The attack leverages a custom-built, low-cost DDR4 interposer hardware hack to stealthily redirect physical addresses and gain unauthorized access to protected memory regions. The vulnerability affects systems using DDR4 memory, particularly those relying on confidential computing workloads in public cloud environments. Successful exploitation can allow a rogue cloud infrastructure provider or insider with limited physical access to compromise remote attestation and enable the insertion of arbitrary backdoors into protected workloads. The vulnerability was reported to the vendors earlier this year, but defending against Battering RAM would require a fundamental redesign of memory encryption itself. The attack is an evolution of the previous BadRAM attack, which exploited physical address aliasing to modify and replay encrypted memory on AMD SEV-SNP systems. The Battering RAM attack introduces dynamic memory aliases at runtime, allowing it to bypass Intel's and AMD's mitigations for BadRAM. Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have demonstrated a new attack called WireTap that also bypasses Intel's SGX security guarantees. WireTap uses a DDR4 memory-bus interposer to passively decrypt sensitive data, exploiting Intel's deterministic encryption. The WireTap attack can extract an SGX secret attestation key, allowing an attacker to sign arbitrary SGX enclave reports. WireTap and Battering RAM attacks are complementary, focusing on confidentiality and integrity respectively. WireTap can be used to undermine confidentiality and integrity guarantees in SGX-backed blockchain deployments. Intel and AMD have acknowledged the exploits but consider physical attacks on DRAM out of scope for their current products. Intel's cryptographic integrity protection mode of Intel Total Memory Encryption-Multi-Key (Intel TME-MK) can provide additional protection against alias-based attacks. The researchers' exploits demonstrate that confidential computing is not invincible, and defenders should reevaluate threat models to better understand and prepare for physical attacks.

Timeline

  1. 01.10.2025 20:20 1 articles · 6d ago

    WireTap Attack Demonstrated to Extract Intel SGX ECDSA Key

    Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have demonstrated a new attack called WireTap that bypasses Intel's SGX security guarantees. WireTap uses a DDR4 memory-bus interposer to passively decrypt sensitive data, exploiting Intel's deterministic encryption. The WireTap attack can extract an SGX secret attestation key, allowing an attacker to sign arbitrary SGX enclave reports. WireTap and Battering RAM attacks are complementary, focusing on confidentiality and integrity respectively. The article also highlights the potential impact of WireTap on SGX-backed blockchain deployments and Intel's stance on the exploit.

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  2. 30.09.2025 21:42 3 articles · 7d ago

    Battering RAM Attack Bypasses Intel and AMD Cloud Security Protections

    The attack is an evolution of the previous BadRAM attack, which exploited physical address aliasing to modify and replay encrypted memory on AMD SEV-SNP systems. The Battering RAM attack introduces dynamic memory aliases at runtime, allowing it to bypass Intel's and AMD's mitigations for BadRAM. The attack requires one-time physical access to the hardware system, which could be achieved by an insider or someone in the supply chain. Intel and AMD have acknowledged the exploit but consider physical attacks on DRAM out of scope for their current products. Intel's cryptographic integrity protection mode of Intel Total Memory Encryption-Multi-Key (Intel TME-MK) can provide additional protection against alias-based attacks. The researchers' exploit demonstrates that confidential computing is not invincible, and defenders should reevaluate threat models to better understand and prepare for physical attacks. Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have demonstrated a new attack called WireTap that also bypasses Intel's SGX security guarantees. WireTap uses a DDR4 memory-bus interposer to passively decrypt sensitive data, exploiting Intel's deterministic encryption. The WireTap attack can extract an SGX secret attestation key, allowing an attacker to sign arbitrary SGX enclave reports. WireTap and Battering RAM attacks are complementary, focusing on confidentiality and integrity respectively. The article also highlights the potential impact of WireTap on SGX-backed blockchain deployments and Intel's stance on the exploit.

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Information Snippets

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