AMD Blog:
Speculative Return Stack Overflow (SRSO) aka INCEPTION is a potential vulnerability that may access privileged memory by using crafted code to leverage CPU speculative execution. This requires the attacker to run malicious software directly on the host. The attacker must also have detailed enough information about the operating environment to identify a memory address of interest and bypass OS features designed to thwart side channel attacks. Not just any code will do: The crafted code must be tailored to the specific CPU, OS, kernel version, and workload. An attack also cannot be launched remotely or from one VM against another. A successful attack only allows the attacker to read compromised data; they cannot modify that data. Further, the attack must occur within a short time window due to the nature of speculative execution. And finally, this attack will not work on servers that are only executing trusted code or when a single user occupies all cores on a server (such as in a bare-metal instance). AMD therefore believes that that the overall security risk associated with this potential vulnerability would be low in typical production environments.
Please read the following to learn more:
- Return Address Security Bulletin
- Technical Update Regarding Speculative Return Stack Overflow
- Speculative Return Stack Overflow Mitigation Options and Considerations for Public Cloud Users
Source:
A Note About the Potential Speculative Return Stack Overflow (SRSO) Vulnerability
Speculative Return Stack Overflow (SRSO) aka INCEPTION is a potential vulnerability that may access privileged memory by using crafted code to leverage CPU speculative execution. This requires the attacker to run malicious software directly on the host. The attacker must also have detailed...
