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NVIDIA Ampere-class GPUs GPUThor Rowhammer ECC bypass privilege-escalation flaw

Vulnerability
First reported
Last updated
Happening score
H score 19
1 unique sources, 1 articles

Summary

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GPUThor is a newly disclosed Rowhammer vulnerability on NVIDIA Ampere-class GPUs that can bypass ECC protections, creating DoS and root-level privilege escalation risk for affected systems. Researchers demonstrated the flaw on RTX A4000, RTX A4500, RTX A5000, and RTX A6000 workstation GPUs with GDDR6 memory. NVIDIA later issued guidance to reduce exposure on Ampere-class and some other GPU configurations.

Related Happenings

NVIDIA GPUThor mitigation advisory

Advisory/Mitigation
H score26 First: 26.08.2026 21:48 Last: 26.08.2026 21:48 Sources 1

How related: The researchers reported their findings to NVIDIA on April 29, and on August 21, the company published an advisory providing guidance.

About this happening: NVIDIA issued a GPUThor mitigation advisory for NVIDIA GPUs facing a Rowhammer-style ECC bypass that can lead to DoS and root-level privilege escalation. T...

Open Happening

Bit2Watt GPU power modulation research on grid destabilization

Technical Analysis
H score22 First: 21.07.2026 14:24 Last: 21.07.2026 14:24 Sources 1

About this happening: Researchers published Bit2Watt, showing that ordinary cloud GPU workloads can be shaped into kilohertz-range power oscillations that may destabilize grid behavior...

Open Happening

Nvidia GPU GPUBreach Rowhammer-style page-table corruption privilege-escalation flaw

Vulnerability
H score19 First: 07.04.2026 14:31 Last: 07.04.2026 14:31 Sources 1

About this happening: Researchers demonstrated GPUBreach, a Rowhammer-style weakness in Nvidia GPUs that can corrupt GPU page tables and enable arbitrary read-write access. When pai...

Open Happening

GPUBreach GPU Rowhammer research enables GDDR6 page-table corruption and privilege escalation

Technical Analysis
H score26 First: 07.04.2026 00:44 Last: 07.04.2026 00:44 Sources 1

About this happening: GPUBreach research shows Rowhammer bit flips in GDDR6 can corrupt GPU page tables, creating a path to arbitrary GPU memory read/write and potential full syst...

Open Happening

Timeline

  1. 26.08.2026 21:48 1 articles · 1h ago

    University of Toronto researchers notify NVIDIA about GPUThor

    Initial Disclosure

    University of Toronto researchers reported GPUThor to NVIDIA on April 29 after showing that the Rowhammer attack can bypass ECC protections on Ampere-class NVIDIA workstation GPUs, including the RTX A4000, RTX A4500, RTX A5000, and RTX A6000 with GDDR6 memory.

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  2. 26.08.2026 21:48 1 articles · 1h ago

    NVIDIA issues GPUThor advisory guidance

    Mitigation Patch Update

    NVIDIA published advisory guidance on August 21 after the GPUThor disclosure, recommending SYS-ECC, IOMMU/DMA isolation, GPU error telemetry monitoring, and restricting the sharing or execution of untrusted workloads.

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  3. 26.08.2026 21:48 2 articles · 1h ago

    GPUThor paper shows ECC bypass, DoS, and root escalation on NVIDIA GPUs

    Technical Analysis Update

    The GPUThor paper described a non-uniform hammering pattern that avoids GDDR6 Target Row Refresh, reported 387 double-bit errors and two triple-bit errors with ECC enabled, and showed that an ECC-enabled RTX A6000 can reset every two hours and terminate all workloads; the researchers also say corrupting GPU page tables can let an unprivileged CUDA program gain arbitrary memory access and open a root shell on the host system.

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