Intel Chips Now Exploitable? Sensitive Data Could Be Compromised By Reducing Chips' Voltage!

Intel Chips Now Exploitable? Sensitive Data Could Be Compromised By Reducing Chips' Voltage!

Hackers can now allegedly, exploit Intel chips via voltage alterations which could lead to messed up flow of electricity only to weaken the security mechanisms of the chips.

Two research teams form Europe and America had realized that this disruption in the voltage could cause sensitive information stored on the Intel chips to leak using the “Secure Guard Extensions” feature.

The researchers were asked to keep these facts concealed for the last half year. Intel, then sent out updates of its firmware to thwart any possibilities of attack.

“Plundervolt”, per sources is the technique named by the researchers which comprises of planting malicious software on the target device to temporarily reduce the voltage of its electrical flow to the Intel chip.

The drop in voltage referred to as “undervolting” generally lets genuine users to conserve power when not needed and to vary the voltage to “overclock” the processor for more strenuous tasks.

But reportedly, by transitorily “undervolting” a processor and timing it accordingly could easily aid a hacker to make the chip dance to their tunes and falter, in turn revealing sensitive data stored within the “SGX enclave”.

Per the researchers, the CPU voltage when reduced could cause a “computation” error in the Intel chips. A “bit-flip” or a “fault injection” in the chips can change a “zero” to “one” on the SGX enclave.

In these potentially exploitable chips, if cryptographic computations are done, the “secret key” could be easily discover-able. The entire chip’s security would become times weaker, leading the data to be decipher easily.

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