It was earlier this year when Intel revealed the security flaw around its processors that could leak confidential data from a PC or Server. Although Intel had released a few fixes to the issue, Intel is reportedly still struggling to fix the hardware security issues in its processors.
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As per the report, two security group of academics from the VUSec group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have managed to successfully exploit the chips flaws on the 9th-generation Intel "Cascade Lake" processors that had been designed to stop these security attacks, reports PCMag. There are two hardware-based issues that have been spotted including ZombieLoad and RIDL (Rogue In-flight Data Load). "Unfortunately, until there is sufficient public/industry pressure, there seems to be little incentive for Intel to change course, leaving the public with a false sense of security," mentioned researchers.
Researchers had disclosed the vulnerabilities back in May and had warned how it could be exploited to pull sensitive information including the browser history data and passwords from people's computers via malware or a Javascript code. The security exploit revealed that the existing version of RIDL attack hadn’t been fully patched by Intel despite it stating otherwise.
"On Oct. 25, 2019, we tested Intel's latest microcode update, and still saw leaks," added researchers. The troublesome part is that Intel makes use of the predict and pre-fetch computing instructions to achieve the overall speed efficiency. Now, although this process helps optimize speed, it can also be manipulated to pre-fetch the confidential data from machine before leaking it.
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In response to the issue, Intel published a blog saying “the external researchers who reported the remaining issues to us have all been good partners in working with us on coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD)...we continuously improve the techniques available to address such issues and appreciate the academic researchers who have partnered with Intel”.
