Last-Level Cache Attack
AMD ID: AMD-SB-7032
Potential Impact: N/A
Severity: N/A
Summary
Researchers from Wuhan University have provided AMD with a paper titled “ZenLeak: Practical Last-Level Cache Side-Channel Attacks on AMD Zen Processors” in which they discuss prime and probe attacks targeting the Last-Level Cache (LLC). In their paper, researchers investigate the feasibility of prime and probe cache attacks on non-inclusive caches, specifically targeting AMD's exclusive cache architecture. The paper acknowledges that previous prime and probe attacks were primarily conducted on Intel® inclusive caches, and methods designed for inclusive caches cannot be directly applied to non-inclusive caches. The researchers then investigate potential attack methods that could be used to target the exclusive cache architecture used by AMD.
AMD believes the techniques described by the researchers are similar to those previously disclosed in security bulletin AMD-SB-7019, and that existing mitigation recommendations for prime and probe side-channel attacks are applicable.
Mitigation
AMD recommends software developers employ existing best practices, including constant-time algorithms and avoid secret-dependent data accesses or control flows where appropriate to help mitigate this potential vulnerability.
Acknowledgement
AMD thanks Han Wang, Ming Tang, Quancheng Wang, and Ke Xu of Wuhan University and Yinqian Zhang from Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) for reporting this issue and engaging in coordinated vulnerability disclosure.
Revisions
Revision Date |
Description |
2025-02-11 |
Initial publication |
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