A team of scientists from the University of Leuven, the University of Lübeck and the University of Birmingham have developed a new physical attack on AMD chips that allows data protected by the processor’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV-SNP) to be extracted.
The attack is dubbed BadRAM and primarily affects AMD processors used in cloud environments where SEV-SNP is typically enabled.
The attack is carried out using a pluggable hardware component that intentionally modifies the configuration information of the memory modules when the computer is started, allowing access to encrypted memory.
Modern computers increasingly use encryption to protect sensitive data in DRAM, especially in shared cloud environments where data breaches and insider threats are common.
Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) from AMD is an advanced technology that provides privacy by encrypting virtual machine (VM) memory and isolating it from attackers.
Researchers have found that tampering with the embedded SPD chip on DRAM modules allows attackers to bypass SEV protections, including AMD’s latest SEV-SNP.
Moreover, the cost of the hardware required to carry out a BadRAM attack is less than $10.
The researchers shared how to implement BadRAM to capture the contents of a memory cell of the SEV-SNP virtual machine and then play it back, recording the process on video.
In turn, AMD released firmware updates to address the BadRAM vulnerability , ensuring safe checking of memory configurations during the processor boot process.
