Intel chip Vulnerable to exposing crucial data (passwords and encryption keys)

Nightwing · Jan 10, 2018

I strongly belives that this news should have been exposed more. Not only it could potentially affect PC performance but it could also exposing crucial data, such as passwords and encryption keys.

BLOOMBERG

Last week, his worst fears were proved right when Intel, one of the world's largest chipmakers, said all modern processors can be attacked by techniques dubbed Meltdown and Spectre, exposing crucial data, such as passwords and encryption keys. The biggest technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Google and Amazon.com Inc.are rushing out fixes for PCs, smartphones and the servers that power the internet, and some have warned that their solutions may dent performance in some cases.

"The processor people were looking at performance and not looking at security."

Spectre fools the processor into running speculative operations -- ones it wouldn't normally perform -- and then uses information about how long the hardware takes to retrieve the data to infer the details of that information. Meltdown exposes data directly by undermining the way information in different applications is kept separate by what's known as a kernel, the key software at the core of every computer.

On Dec. 3, a quiet Sunday afternoon, the Graz researchers ran similar tests, proving Meltdown attacks worked. "We said, 'Oh God, that can't be possible. We must have a mistake. There shouldn't be this sort of mistake in processors," recalled Schwarz.

Despite Fogh's encouragement, the Graz researchers still didn't think attacks would ever work in practice. "That would be such a major f*ck-up by Intel that it can't be possible," Schwarz recalled saying. So the team didn't dedicate much time to it.

The difference this time was that their work ended up "in the spotlight," according to Smith. They would have preferred to complete the work in secret.

Some in the cybersecurity community aren't so sure. Kocher, who helped discover Spectre, thinks this is just the beginning of the industry's woes. Now that new ways to exploit chips have been exposed, there'll be more variations and more flaws that will require more patches and mitigation.

"This is just like peeling the lid off the can of worms," he said.

Primus · Jan 10, 2018

We've had a ton of threads about Meltdown and Spectre in the last few days, here's the main one in Etcetera.

Nightwing · Jan 10, 2018

Primus said:
We've had a ton of threads about Meltdown and Spectre in the last few days, here's the main one in Etcetera.

I read those threads but I didn't realize or understand how fuck up these vulnerability. This article helps.

eyeball_kid · Jan 10, 2018

I also made one for specifically discussing the vulnerabilities with game consoles: https://www.resetera.com/threads/game-consoles-likely-vulnerable-to-meltdown-and-spectre.14204/

short answer: none of the major three console makers except for a tweet from the Xbox gaming chief has even made a statement about it yet. but you can assume that all consoles are vulnerable, especially the web browser.

ffvorax · Jan 10, 2018

Very interesting article, and a huge mess up for security... I think not only about all our personal data that are now possibly exposed, but also industry machines that are connected to the internet.... :\
This is super bad, I hope a real solution is found soon enough to really patch everything before they release new, hopefully, secure hardware in the future

Yjynx · Jan 10, 2018

Primus said:
We've had a ton of threads about Meltdown and Spectre in the last few days, here's the main one in Etcetera.

eyeball_kid said:
I also made one for specifically discussing the vulnerabilities with game consoles: https://www.resetera.com/threads/game-consoles-likely-vulnerable-to-meltdown-and-spectre.14204/

short answer: none of the major three console makers except for a tweet from the Xbox gaming chief has even made a statement about it yet. but you can assume that all consoles are vulnerable, especially the web browser.

I'm on Windows 8.1 and I still haven't received any patch yet....

And with thread title called meltdown and spectre....didn't click any of those thread

Tldr; I have no idea about this security flaw

X1 Two · Jan 10, 2018

eyeball_kid said:
I also made one for specifically discussing the vulnerabilities with game consoles: https://www.resetera.com/threads/game-consoles-likely-vulnerable-to-meltdown-and-spectre.14204/

short answer: none of the major three console makers except for a tweet from the Xbox gaming chief has even made a statement about it yet. but you can assume that all consoles are vulnerable, especially the web browser.

No. They (well I don't know about Switch) have layers upon layers of security that prevents that. Even if the browser itself is vulnerable, it's impossible to gain access to the critical data because of the Hypervisor.

eyeball_kid · Jan 10, 2018

X1 Two said:
No. They (well I don't know about Switch) have layers upon layers of security that prevents that. Even if the browser itself is vulnerable, it's impossible to gain access to the critical data because of the Hypervisor.

Well I'm not a security expert, but these vulnerabilities can grab data straight out of protected memory. It skirts past virtual machines like VMWare. I would be very surprised if these consoles were airtight.

Nosgoroth · Jan 10, 2018

eyeball_kid said:
Well I'm not a security expert, but these vulnerabilities can grab data straight out of protected memory. It skirts past virtual machines like VMWare. I would be very surprised if these consoles were airtight.

Switch should be pretty airtight, since it has no user-controllable browser, which means that the only feasible way to run code that uses these vulnerabilities is by throwing a binary through Nintendo and into the eShop. Even in that case the CPU will probably be only running that game and nothing else except the OS, and even in those circumstances it's going to be close to impossible to get any sensitive info out of the CPU.

I guess you could do a DNS attack and swap the Facebook/Twitter sharing pages with something else, but then it would be way more efficient to just use phishing to get the user's password in a more direct manner.

Geese Howard · Jan 10, 2018

Nosgoroth said:
Switch should be pretty airtight, since it has no user-controllable browser, which means that the only feasible way to run code that uses these vulnerabilities is by throwing a binary through Nintendo and into the eShop. Even in that case the CPU will probably be only running that game and nothing else except the OS, and even in those circumstances it's going to be close to impossible to get any sensitive info out of the CPU.

Puyo Puyo Tetris's in game manual accidentally contains an external link you can access the native browser with. It's an extremely outdated version of WebKit that has already been used to run code on the system. There was a presentation about it very recently.

I guess you could do a DNS attack and swap the Facebook/Twitter sharing pages with something else, but then it would be way more efficient to just use phishing to get the user's password in a more direct manner.

Forgetting about SSL here.

Nosgoroth · Jan 10, 2018

Geese Howard said:
Puyo Puyo Tetris's in game manual accidentally contains an external link you can access the native browser with. It's an extremely outdated version of WebKit that has already been used to run code on the system. There was a presentation about it very recently.

Wow, there's nothing like, I don't know, an URL whitelist? Still, extremely limited application for exploiting Meltdown/Spectre to attack random users.

Geese Howard said:
Forgetting about SSL here.

Oh yeah, duh, that's going to happen over https and if they can somehow break that or add trusted root certs then Meltdown/Spectre is the least of our problems. Brain fart.

Birdo · Jan 10, 2018

Nosgoroth said:
Wow, there's nothing like, I don't know, an URL whitelist? Still, extremely limited application for exploiting Meltdown/Spectre to attack random users.

Oh yeah, duh, that's going to happen over https and if they can somehow break that or add trusted root certs then Meltdown/Spectre is the least of our problems. Brain fart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzngEqL6vnI

A prominent hacking group has been teasing the Switch being hacked.

Zetran · Jan 10, 2018

The initial thread and news were always emphasis on the drop of performance. I didn't realize there were this huge vulnerabilities in securities. Not to mention that the thread were moved to Etcetera with names like Spectre and Meltdown.

So good job on Intel PR department?

Deleted member 11517 · Jan 10, 2018

Primus said:
We've had a ton of threads about Meltdown and Spectre in the last few days, here's the main one in Etcetera.

Well, yes, and it's a good thread, but it was moved from gaming - and I didn't really understand why, as this definitely affects gaming, and we don't even know how far this'll go, not only are lower powered, older PC's affected most it seems, what about gaming consoles?
At least the browsers of current gen consoles should be exploitable right now.

I agree with the OP, this needs more exposure, hopefully with little to no fearmongering or downplaying of the issues. I don't even understand half of this and the implications.

I guess foremost I have to wait and hope my laptop manufacturer (Lenovo) puts up updates for my laptop that fix most of this mess without fucking the performance up too much ...

Nightwing · Jan 10, 2018

kageroo said:
Well, yes, and it's a good thread, but it was moved from gaming - and I didn't really understand why, as this definitely affects gaming, and we don't even know how far this'll go, not only are lower powered, older PC's affected most it seems, what about gaming consoles?
At least the browsers of current gen consoles should be exploitable right now.

I agree with the OP, this needs more exposure, hopefully with little to no fearmongering or downplaying of the issues. I don't even understand half of this and the implications.

I guess foremost I have to wait and hope my laptop manufacturer (Lenovo) puts up updates for my laptop that fix most of this mess without fucking the performance up too much ...

Well said

Intel chip Vulnerable to exposing crucial data (passwords and encryption keys)

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