Security News > 2022 > August > APIC fail: Intel 'Sunny Cove' chips with SGX spill secrets

A group of computer scientists has identified an architectural error in certain recent Intel CPUs that can be abused to expose SGX enclave data like private encryption keys.

The bug affects recent Intel CPUs based on the company's Sunny Cove microarchitecture, the authors say.

They scanned the I/O address space on Sunny Cove-based Intel CPUs and found that the memory-mapped registers of the local APIC are not cleanly initialized.

The researchers devised two techniques - Cache Line Freezing and Enclave Shaking - that they were able to use to obtain AES-NI keys and RSA keys from Intel's IPP library and the Intel SGX sealing and remote attestation keys.

Intel in January announced that it is deprecating SGX - already battered by several attacks - for its client CPUs.

Intel continues to recommend the use of Intel SGX and intends to provide a revised Intel SGX Software Development Kit for Windows and Linux to help reduce the chance that enclave data might be inferred.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/08/09/intel_sunny_cove/