Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by slededit on Thursday May 03, 2018 @03:26PM
(#16989017)
Apple is using the same commodity DRAM chips as everyone else. I doubt they are immune.
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Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by bilbo0s on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:17PM
(#16989521)
No need to "doubt". Just try Rowhammer via GLitch on a test iOS device. It will either work, or it will not. We need more people trying this out, informing vendors, and reporting their results in a REPLICABLE fashion.
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by gruez on Thursday May 03, 2018 @04:57PM
(#16989894)
>Just try Rowhammer via GLitch on a test iOS device
from TFA:
>the PoC currently works only on a Nexus 5 phone
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by bigiain on Thursday May 03, 2018 @09:05PM
(#16991413)
This makes me _more_ certain iOS will end up being _more_ vulnerable to this type of attack.
It's almost certainly quite hardware specific, and if you were weaponising this there's way more homogeneous hardware on iOS than Android. Get this working on iPhone 7/8/X and you've probably got 75% of the "high value" iOS device fleet covered.
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by slededit on Thursday May 03, 2018 @06:53PM
(#16990754)
They are probably immune to this specific implementation simply because the relevant bits are in different locations - but not to the attack in general.
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by xenadu02 on Thursday May 03, 2018 @09:04PM
(#16991404)
Row hammer mitigations exist. Do you have some proof one way or the other?
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by slededit on Thursday May 03, 2018 @11:19PM
(#16991975)
Although not evidence either way - were apple to include mitigation for row hammer its most likely they would advertise it as they do their other security infrastructure. Its about on-par with the encryption processor in the imac pro in terms of technicality and that is public information.
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by aflam on Friday May 04, 2018 @12:02AM
(#16992095)
They did increase their DRAM refresh rate and mentioned it in release notes. There is not much more you can do easily - and it comes at a real cost in power usage.
Re:Drive-by Rowhammer attack uses GPU to compromise an Andro...
by slededit on Friday May 04, 2018 @12:53AM
(#16992278)
You can actually refresh specific rows adjacent to frequently accessed ones by issuing ACT->Precharge command combos. Timed right it only comes into play during attacks (whether intentional or by coincidence) and therefore has little additional power usage.
Also that release note was for the Mac not the iPhone. They are less likely to apply that mitigation to the iPhone precisely because it would result in increased power consumption. They could however integrate the more advanced fix in the memory controller since they control the SoC. I would expect them to brag about it if they had.