• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Major Vulnerabilities Discovered, or imagined, in AMD Zen Architecture. Backdoors too, or possibly no backdoors at all.

longdi

Banned
Bye bye PS5!

Security researchers with Israel-based CTS-Labs, have discovered a staggering thirteen critical security vulnerabilities for AMD's "Zen" CPU microarchitecture, which are as damning as the recent "Meltdown" and "Spectre" vulnerabilities that affect various CPU manufacturers at varying degrees (Intel, AMD, and ARM). The thirteen new CVEs are broadly classified into four groups based on the similarity in function of the processor that they exploit: "Ryzenfall," "Masterkey," "Fallout," and "Chimera."

The researchers "believe that networks that contain AMD computers are at a considerable risk," malware can "survive computer reboots and re-installations of the operating system, while remaining virtually undetectable by most endpoint security solutions, such as anti-virus software." They also mention that in their opinion, "the basic nature of some of these vulnerabilities amounts to complete disregard of fundamental security principles. This raises concerning questions regarding security practices, auditing, and quality controls at AMD."

https://www.techpowerup.com/

U6bY9hHj5cpnm0Pn_thm.jpg
 
Last edited:

Armorian

Banned
Damn, no time to fix this on the hardware level until Zen 2. I don't whink it will affect PS5/XTwo development that much.
 
Last edited:
This makes me glad that I didn't invest in Ryzen CPU this go around. Both AMD and Intel got screwed. However, this looks even worse for AMD due to malware code being store directly on the secure part of the CPU. This is not good.
 

Blam

Member
not upgrading my 3770k until all new fixed hardware is out, ffs intel and amd.
intel actually tried to fix this unlike AMD who in a douchey way said our product is too good to have issues like this and wowee it's got 13 of them compared to the 1 on intel alone.
 

Locuza

Member
Viceroy Research tried to manipulate in regards to ProsiebenSat 1 (big mass media company based in Germany) before with misleading statements and false interpretations in a 37-page long paper (german source):
http://www.boerse-online.de/nachric...es-Researchhaus-Viceroy-ins-Visier-1018618492

Now an unknown security lab by commission publishes a security flaw report in AMD processors, has a website without HTTPS, made another website dedicated to the flaws and embeds two videos from a conveniently created YouTube account just one day before:


It screams fake news all over the place, just read the disclaimer on the page or in the whitepaper:
The report and all statements contained herein are opinions of CTS and are not statements of fact.
Although we have a good faith belief in our analysis and believe it to be objective and unbiased, you are advised that we may have, either directly or indirectly, an economic interest in the performance of the securities of the companies whose products are the subject of our reports
https://www.amdflaws.com/disclaimer.html
 
Last edited:

LOLCats

Banned
intel actually tried to fix this unlike AMD who in a douchey way said our product is too good to have issues like this and wowee it's got 13 of them compared to the 1 on intel alone.

right. but just knowing there is even a 1-4% performance hit :) ... but ya i think i can hold out just a while longer with my 3770k
 

LordRaptor

Member
It screams fake news all over the place, just read the disclaimer on the page or in the whitepaper:
The report and all statements contained herein are opinions of CTS and are not statements of fact.

https://www.amdflaws.com/disclaimer.html

Isn't that there so that their statements about AMDs "complete disregard of fundamental security principles" isn't legally actionable, along with their claims about shitty QA?
I don't think they're saying vulnerabilities are "opinion".

e:
Having said that, public disclosure and a 24 hour deadline to meet demands is at the very least deeply unprofessional behaviour for security researchers
 
Last edited:

llien

Member
as damning as the recent "Meltdown" and "Spectre" vulnerabilities that affect various CPU manufacturers at varying degrees (Intel, AMD, and ARM)

Sorry, but this switches me into "is that Intel's FUD?" mode.

Meltdown is to Spectre what nuclear bomb is to conventional. Oh, and there is no Fix. There are workarounds with serious performance impact. And it affects most Intel CPUs.

AMD was immune to Meltdown and I have yet to come across report of successful Spectre attack on AMD CPUs.
 
Last edited:

WaterAstro

Member
Yeah, I'm not really into trusting an "Israel-based" whatever.

We should all be skeptical because we're not engineers or hackers. We don't know how these "backdoors" work on a processor.
 

Swizzle

Gold Member
Bye bye PS5!

Security researchers with Israel-based CTS-Labs, have discovered a staggering thirteen critical security vulnerabilities for AMD's "Zen" CPU microarchitecture, which are as damning as the recent "Meltdown" and "Spectre" vulnerabilities that affect various CPU manufacturers at varying degrees (Intel, AMD, and ARM). The thirteen new CVEs are broadly classified into four groups based on the similarity in function of the processor that they exploit: "Ryzenfall," "Masterkey," "Fallout," and "Chimera."

The researchers "believe that networks that contain AMD computers are at a considerable risk," malware can "survive computer reboots and re-installations of the operating system, while remaining virtually undetectable by most endpoint security solutions, such as anti-virus software." They also mention that in their opinion, "the basic nature of some of these vulnerabilities amounts to complete disregard of fundamental security principles. This raises concerning questions regarding security practices, auditing, and quality controls at AMD."

https://www.techpowerup.com/

U6bY9hHj5cpnm0Pn_thm.jpg

Loved the Bye bye PS5 but when both major system holders have the same arch lol.
 

Swizzle

Gold Member
AMD did not actually say that and it was true that their core were not speculating across user | kernel space boundaries, so not sure what you are implying here.

The other vulnerability is something both manufacturers are working on and best addressed at the software level.
 

llien

Member
https://amdflaws.com/disclaimer.html

The report and all statements contained herein are opinions of CTS and are not statements of fact. To the best of our ability and belief, all information contained herein is accurate and reliable, and has been obtained from public sources we believe to be accurate and reliable.

Although we have a good faith belief in our analysis and believe it to be objective and unbiased, you are advised that we may have, either directly or indirectly,
an economic interest in the performance of the securities of the companies whose products are the subject of our reports.

The AMDFlaws.com domain was registered with GoDaddy on the 22nd of February and ownership of that domain is hidden by Domains By Proxy, LLC.



"Vulnerability" list starts with "if your BIOS is infected". I call BS.
 

llien

Member
AMD's statement:

We have just received a report from a company called CTS Labs claiming there are potential security vulnerabilities related to certain of our processors. We are actively investigating and analyzing its findings. This company was previously unknown to AMD and we find it unusual for a security firm to publish its research to the press without providing a reasonable amount of time for the company to investigate and address its findings. At AMD, security is a top priority and we are continually working to ensure the safety of our users as potential new risks arise. We will update this blog as news develops.
 

Swizzle

Gold Member
Obvious stock manipulation attempt is obvious.

Will see what happens, it would not be a legal approach for sure... I am a lot more upset at the, once again, professional bloggers claiming to be journalist from respected sites like Ars’ Technica or OS News which should know better than pushing click bait inaccurate headlines and articles. That is even worse IMHO.
 

Dienekes

Moderator battling in the shade.
So it turns out you need local admin rights to get this to work on top of a modified BIOS. This is akin to giving permission to a car thief to drive your car to the store and handing them the keys; then saying your car is stealable if you give permission and keys to car thieves.

Probably should edit the OP to lay this all out more clearly along with the dubious companies involved and why so we keep GAF from being a part of the problem. At this point it's looking pretty damning against Viceroy for stock manipulation for short selling.
 

ShumiVK

Neo Member
Looks really shady...I'm not saying those bugs are BS but not allowing a company enough time to look into the issue as is customary is just a cry for attention and/or deliberate attempt at discrediting the company....even the wording in CTS's statement is questionable to say the least.

I personally own and AMD processor as of 2 months ago (had Intel before that) and I'm not worried at all....if the claims are legit there will probably be a fix and that's that....
 

Allandor

Member
According to some magazines, this "security company" just wants to get into media. Nothing more. They also claimed a lot in the past, just to make money from falling stock prices.
 

shpankey

not an idiot
Ryzen is an excellent buy. Highly recommended and this is a non-issue. If someone has local physical access with full admin rights, the specialized signed driver and the ability to flash your bios to this custom hacked one, you are already WAAAY past vulnerable, lol. Any system in the world at that point has been fully breached. Just install whatever malware you want. What a ridiculous non-issue.



p.s. to be fully open here, I've never owned a single AMD product in my life, nor have any stocks or vested interest in them other than not liking whatever nefarious business is going on here.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom