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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) .

E. Prouff, and M. Rivain "Masking against Side-Channel Attacks: a Formal Security Proof," Advances in Cryptology, EUROCRYPT 2013

E. Oswald, S. Mangard, and T. Popp "Power Analysis Attacks: Revealing the Secrets of Smart Cards," Power Analysis Attacks, Springer 2007

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.

E. Prouff, and M. Rivain "Masking against Side-Channel Attacks: a Formal Security Proof," Advances in Cryptology, EUROCRYPT 2013

E. Oswald, S. Mangard, and T. Popp "Power Analysis Attacks: Revealing the Secrets of Smart Cards," Power Analysis Attacks, Springer 2007

Created At : December 26th 2022, 7:06:05 am
Last Updated At : December 28th 2022, 10:19:08 am
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