Intel patches its Downfall

Stefan Mileschin · 11th August 2023, 11:43

Hits Skylake Tigerlake

Intel has released a patch for a particularly nasty processor speculative execution vulnerability – Downfall.

Intel prefers to call it is GDS: Gather Data Sampling but Downfall has a better ring to it. Downfall affects the gather instruction with AVX2 and AVX-512 enabled processors. The latest-generation Intel CPUs are not affected but older chips between Tigerlake and Skylake are vulnerable.

Downfall is a vulnerability in the chips memory optimisation feature that unintentionally reveals internal hardware registers to software.

With Downfall, untrusted software can access data stored by other programs that typically should be off-limits: the AVX GATHER instruction can leak the contents of the internal vector register file during speculative execution.

https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardwar...s-its-downfall

11th August 2023, 11:43	#1
Stefan Mileschin [M] Reviewer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Romania Posts: 153,629	Intel patches its Downfall Hits Skylake Tigerlake Intel has released a patch for a particularly nasty processor speculative execution vulnerability – Downfall. Intel prefers to call it is GDS: Gather Data Sampling but Downfall has a better ring to it. Downfall affects the gather instruction with AVX2 and AVX-512 enabled processors. The latest-generation Intel CPUs are not affected but older chips between Tigerlake and Skylake are vulnerable. Downfall is a vulnerability in the chips memory optimisation feature that unintentionally reveals internal hardware registers to software. With Downfall, untrusted software can access data stored by other programs that typically should be off-limits: the AVX GATHER instruction can leak the contents of the internal vector register file during speculative execution. https://fudzilla.com/news/pc-hardwar...s-its-downfall

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