Once again, I pine for ECC memory on my Laptop. I know you can get ECC SODIMMS, I got 16GB worth for a Supermicro ITX motherboard. And while the paper talks about multi-bit errors getting through ECC (which is certainly possible with enough flips) single flips causing alerts and double flips causing halts would really get your attention that something bad was happening. As opposed to silently sitting there while my memory is shredded.
Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
21–30 of 103 posts
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#22The starting research that enabled this security work appeared last year at ISCA, but didn't fully discuss the security implications:
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#23Is a memory error actually an exploit? If so then are the unwanted changes that occur with no deliberate action an example of the computer cracking itself?
Philosophical...
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#24Once again, I pine for ECC memory on my Laptop. I know you can get ECC SODIMMS, I got 16GB worth for a Supermicro ITX motherboard. And while the paper talks about multi-bit errors getting through ECC (which is certainly possible with enough flips) single flips causing alerts and double flips causing halts would really get your attention that something bad was happening. As opposed to silently sitting there while my m…
I don't think laptops have SODIMM memory these days.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#25Would reducing the speed memory is clocked at prevent this?
Yes, it would, as would overvoltage, and reducing the refresh interval. The latter reduces memory subsystem performance, however.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#26Is a memory error actually an exploit? If so then are the unwanted changes that occur with no deliberate action an example of the computer cracking itself? Philosophical...
Errors can be used as part or all of an exploit. Exploiting a system requires that ethereal value of "intent", and I don't think anyone would (currently) argue that computers can have intent. Without that intent, it's just an error.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#27Once again, I pine for ECC memory on my Laptop. I know you can get ECC SODIMMS, I got 16GB worth for a Supermicro ITX motherboard. And while the paper talks about multi-bit errors getting through ECC (which is certainly possible with enough flips) single flips causing alerts and double flips causing halts would really get your attention that something bad was happening. As opposed to silently sitting there while my m…
I don't think laptops have SODIMM memory these days.
Sadly true, the 'thin is in' crowd is more often than not soldering in the memory.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#28Once again, I pine for ECC memory on my Laptop. I know you can get ECC SODIMMS, I got 16GB worth for a Supermicro ITX motherboard. And while the paper talks about multi-bit errors getting through ECC (which is certainly possible with enough flips) single flips causing alerts and double flips causing halts would really get your attention that something bad was happening. As opposed to silently sitting there while my m…
I don't think laptops have SODIMM memory these days.
I bought one two weeks ago that has two SODIMM slots.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#29Very little information on time scales. In one case they speak about 5 minutes vs 40 minutes (both might be acceptable for an exploit). Also no information about how long it took to bitflip in their per-hardware table. And why name no hardware vendor ? I'm guessing they expect people to use the tool they provided and draw their own conclusions, but I don't understand why they'd treat them differently from software ve…
At a guess to avoid labeling laptop manufacturers and getting sued if it turns out that something else was at fault? The DRAM itself might be the culprit (probably is), laptops of a certain brand might come with RAM from different manufacturers.
Re: Project Zero: Exploiting the DRAM rowhammer bug to gain kernel privileges
#30Does anyone know if Macbooks are known to be affected?
Seems like my Macbook Air 2014 is not affected (with a high probability) here's the test: https://github.com/google/rowhammer-test
How long did you test it? The tests they did ran fairly long, possibly you'd have to run this for days to really be able to state that a particular machine/ram combination is not vulnerable.