New PortSmash Lateral Channel Vulnerability (CVE-2018-5407)



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A new vulnerability called PortSmash (CVE-2018-5407) has been discovered that affects all CPUs using a simultaneous multithreading (SMT) architecture. SMT is a technology that allows you to run multiple computing threads on a processor core at the same time.

PortSmash is being clbadified as a secondary channel attack, a technique used to leak encrypted data from a computer's memory or CPU, which will also record and badyze operating time, power consumption , electromagnetic leaks or even sounds for additional information. can help break encryption algorithms and recover data processed by the CPU.

An example on the operation of the attack:

Malicious process badociated with legitimate processes using SMT parallel threading features. The malicious PortSmash process leaks small amounts of data from the legitimate process, thus helping an attacker rebuild the encrypted data processed in the legitimate process.

The team that discovered this vulnerability released a Proof of Principle (PoC) code on GitHub that illustrates a PortSmash attack on the Intel Skylake and Kaby Lake processors.

To remedy this problem, companies are encouraged to install a patch provided by Intel prior to validating the PortSmash Proof of Concept or to disable SMT / Hyper-Threading in the BIOS of the processor chip until that time. that you can install security. patches.

PortSmash has joined the list of newly discovered secondary channel vulnerabilities such as TLBleed, Meltdown, Foreshadow and Spectrum.

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