Hertzbleed
Bulletin ID: AMP-SB-0005
Potential Impact: This attack can potentially use a power side-channel to compromise the confidentiality of data used in a victim task.
Severity: CVSS score: 6.3 (Medium)
Summary
Hertzbleed is a power side-channel attack that indirectly correlates the frequency scaling of the processor with the current series of instructions and data being processed on the system. Changes in the processor frequency during execution of the victim task can be observed through the execution time of the victim, allowing inference of power consumption through observation of wall time. This attack can potentially compromise the confidentiality of data used in a victim task.
Fixed in
There does not exist a complete mitigation against these types of attacks. However, there are several countermeasures and recommendations for cryptographic code, to protect against power side-channels, that can be used to mitigate Hertzbleed (see the references below) .
Affected Products
Ampere® Altra®, Ampere® Altra® Max, AmpereOne™
Recommendations
There does not exist a complete mitigation against these types of attacks. However, there are several countermeasures and recommendations for cryptographic code, to protect against power side-channels, that can be used to mitigate Hertzbleed (see the references below). It is highly recommended to use strong cryptographic code to mitigate against such issues.
Ampere Computing LLC
4655 Great America Parkway Suite 601
Santa Clara, CA 95054
