So you encrypted your memory? 🤔

Join us for Jo Van Bulck's talk and meet #BadRAM and #BatteringRAM: a new class of memory aliasing attacks that defeat Intel SGX and AMD SEV-SNP confidential computing through low-cost interposition.

📅 May 7th, 2026 | 14:00
📍 CCG Seminar room, CCGEG002

More information 👇
https://www.isec.tugraz.at/event/past-the-perimeter-low-cost-memory-interposer-attacks-on-confidential-computing/

Check out the attacks:
🦹‍♂️ https://badram.eu/
🐏 https://batteringram.eu/

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Abstract:
As cloud computing adoption grows, so do concerns about trust and data privacy. Confidential computing, powered by innovative hardware technologies like Intel SGX and AMD SEV, promises strong isolation and transparent memory encryption to protect against privileged attackers and physical threats such as bus snooping and cold boot attacks.
This talk overviews our recent work on BadRAM and BatteringRAM, showing that state-of-the-art memory encryption can be reliably bypassed with limited physical access and ~$50 of custom hardware. By introducing a novel form of runtime memory aliasing, we defeat even the firmware defenses deployed in response to our earlier findings; ultimately exposing fundamental limitations in today's scalable confidential computing designs.

Speaker bio:
Jo Van Bulck is a professor in the DistriNet lab at the Department of Computer Science of KU Leuven, Belgium. His research explores attacks and defenses at the hardware-software boundary, with particular attention to privileged side channels in trusted execution environments. Jo's research has uncovered several innovative attack vectors in commodity Intel x86 processors that have led to microcode and silicon mitigations in hardware, as well as software patches in major operating systems and compilers.

It's not a great day when you have to read https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/html_node/badram.html

#badram

"It's always DNS", right? I've been troubleshooting a "failing" hard disk for weeks now. Occasional disk errors in dmesg, and the odd system crash followed by a fsck with tons of errors. Nope, not a failing hard disk. Bad RAM. I swear, RAM is worse than DNS for me.

#homelab #selfhosting #badram

Security Week 2451: атака BadRAM на процессоры AMD

На прошлой неделе исследователи из университетов Бельгии, Германии и Великобритании продемонстрировали необычную аппаратную атаку, эксплуатирующую уязвимость в процессорах AMD. Хотя это и сложная атака, при некоторых условиях она может представлять интерес, так как позволяет обойти новейшие средства защиты данных при использовании виртуализации. Практическая реализация атаки предполагает модификацию так называемого чипа SPD на модуле оперативной памяти, в котором прописаны параметры этого модуля. Таким образом атакующие могут сообщить процессору, что объем планки памяти в два раза больше, чем на самом деле, например, 32 гигабайта вместо 16. Таким образом можно перенаправить поток данных от «защищенной» виртуальной ОС в руки потенциального злоумышленника.

https://habr.com/ru/companies/kaspersky/articles/866860/

#badram

AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology faces a serious threat! 🛡️ Researchers have revealed a $10 attack that can bypass its defenses, potentially compromising cloud security. This "BadRAM" technique manipulates memory to expose sensitive data. 😱💻 Major cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud could be affected. Stay informed! #CyberSecurity #AMD #CloudComputing #BadRAM #newz

https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/10/amd_secure_vm_tech_undone/

🚨 Security Alert! Researchers uncover critical vulnerability in AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) tech 🖥️ Hackers can potentially exploit memory aliasing to infiltrate devices using a technique called #BadRAM 🕵️ AMD issued CVE-2024-21944 advisory - update your systems! 🛡️ #CyberSecurity #TechNews #newz

https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/amd-vm-security-tools-can-be-bypassed-letting-hackers-infilitrate-your-devices-experts-warn

New #BadRAM attack neuters #security assurances in #AMD #Epyc processors

One of the oldest maxims in hacking is that once an attacker has physical access to a device, it’s game over for its security. The basis is sound.
#AMDEpyc

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/12/new-badram-attack-neuters-security-assurances-in-amd-epyc-processors/