this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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626
Unpatchable vulnerability in Apple chip leaks secret encryption keys (arstechnica.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
63 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The attack has been dubbed GoFetch: https://gofetch.fail/

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

So the attack is (very basically, if I understand correctly)

Setup:

  • I control at least one process on the machine I am targeting another process on
  • I can send data to the target process and the process will decrypt that

Attack:

  • I send data that in some intermediate state of decryption will look like a pointer
  • This "pointer" contains some information about the secret key I am trying to steal
  • The prefetcher does it's thing loading the data "pointed to" in the cache
  • I can observe via a cache side channel what the prefetcher did, giving me this "pointer" containing information about the secret key
  • Repeat until I have gathered enough information about the secret key

Is this somewhat correct? Those speculative execution vulnerabilities always make my brain hurt a little