CVE-2021-42114
Modern DRAM devices (PC-DDR4, LPDDR4X) are affected by a vulnerability in their internal Target Row Refresh (TRR) mitigation against Rowhammer attacks.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (2.98%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
Modern DRAM devices (PC-DDR4, LPDDR4X) are affected by a vulnerability in their internal Target Row Refresh (TRR) mitigation against Rowhammer attacks. Novel non-uniform Rowhammer access patterns, consisting of aggressors with different frequencies, phases, and amplitudes allow triggering bit flips on affected memory modules using our Blacksmith fuzzer. The patterns generated by Blacksmith were able to trigger bitflips on all 40 PC-DDR4 DRAM devices in our test pool, which cover the three major DRAM manufacturers: Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. This means that, even when chips advertised as Rowhammer-free are used, attackers may still be able to exploit Rowhammer. For example, this enables privilege-escalation attacks against the kernel or binaries such as the sudo binary, and also triggering bit flips in RSA-2048 keys (e.g., SSH keys) to gain cross-tenant virtual-machine access. We can confirm that DRAM devices acquired in July 2020 with DRAM chips from all three major DRAM vendors (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) are affected by this vulnerability. For more details, please refer to our publication.
- CVSS 3.1
- 8.3 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 2.98% probability · 87th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-20
- Affected
- samsung/ddr4 sdram firmware · samsung/lddr4 firmware · micron/lddr4 firmware · micron/ddr4 sdram firmware · skhynix/ddr4 sdram firmware · skhynix/lddr4 firmware
- Source
- vulnerability@ncsc.ch
References
- https://comsec.ethz.ch/research/dram/blacksmith/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://comsec.ethz.ch/wp-content/files/blacksmith_sp22.pdfExploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/comsec-group/blacksmithExploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://comsec.ethz.ch/research/dram/blacksmith/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://comsec.ethz.ch/wp-content/files/blacksmith_sp22.pdfExploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/comsec-group/blacksmithExploit, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.