Hardware security bug: Difference between revisions

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{{short description|Hardware bug}}

In digital computing, '''hardware security bugs''' are a[[hardware classbug]]s ofor flaws that create [[Vulnerability (computing)|vulnerabilities]] affecting computer [[central processing unit]]s (CPUs), or other devices which incorporate programmable processors or logic and have [[direct memory access]], which allow data to be read by a rogue process when such reading is not authorized. Such vulnerabilities are considered "catastrophic" by security analysts.<ref> {{cite web

| url=https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/01/spectre_and_mel_1.html

| author = Bruce Schneier

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| publisher=Rudebaguette.com

| date = January 8, 2018

| quote = ''[sic]:'' The effects of these vulnerabilities are catastrophic: « at best, the vulnerability can be used by malwares and hackers to exploit other security linked bugs. At worse, the flaw can be used by softwaressoftware and authentified users to read the kernel’s memory

| accessdate = February 4, 2019

}} </ref>

}} </ref> These vulnerabilities are based on exploiting side effects of [[speculative execution]], a technique used by many high performance CPUs to improve processing speed.

==Speculative execution vulnerabilities==

== See also ==

Starting in 2017, a series of security vulnerabilities were found in the implementations of speculative execution on common processor architectures which effectively enabled an elevation of [[privilege (computing)|privileges]].

* [[Spectre (security vulnerability)|Spectre]]

These include:

* [[Foreshadow (security vulnerability)|Foreshadow]]

* [[Meltdown (security vulnerability)|Meltdown]]

* [[Microarchitectural Data Sampling]]

* [[Spectre (security vulnerability)|Spectre]]

* [[SPOILER (security vulnerability)|SPOILER]]

* [[Pacman (security vulnerability)|Pacman]]

==Intel VISA==

In 2019 researchers discovered that a manufacturer debugging mode, known as VISA, had an undocumented feature on [[Intel Corporation|Intel]] Platform Controller Hubs, which are the chipsets included on most Intel-based motherboards and which have direct memory access, which made the mode accessible with a normal motherboard possibly leading to a security vulnerability.<ref name=toms>{{cite web|url=https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-visa-undocumented-feature-chipsets-cpus,38954.html|title=Intel Chipsets' Undocumented Feature Can Help Hackers Steal Data|work=Tom's Hardware|author=Lucian Armasu|date=29 March 2019 }}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Hardware security]]

* [[Security bug]]

* [[Computer security]]

* [[Threat (computer)]]

== References ==

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[[category:Hardware bugs]]

[[category:Side-channel attacks]]

[[categoryCategory:2018 in computer sciencecomputing]]