Intel Adds New Circuit to Chips to Ward Off Motherboard Exploits

guest · Aug 21, 2022

The countermeasure, which compares the time and voltage at which circuits are activated, is being implemented in 12th Gen Intel Core processors.
August 20, 2022

Intel has developed and incorporated a circuit into its latest line of PC chips that can detect when attackers are using motherboard exploits to extract information from PC devices.

The "tunable replica circuit" on the latest Intel chips can detect attempts to glitch systems through voltage, clock, or electromagnetic techniques, Intel said during Black Hat. Attackers use these techniques to insert their own firmware and take control of the device.

"Every semiconductor ever produced is vulnerable to these attacks. The question is, how easy is it to exploit? We've just made it a lot harder to exploit because we detect these attacks," says Daniel Nemiroff, senior principal engineer at Intel.
The circuit is being implemented in Alder Lake, the 12th Gen Intel Core processors, which are used in laptops. Servers may get this technology at a later date, Nemiroff says.
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The Circuit's Inner Workings
Typically, when a computer turns on, the silicon's power management controller waits for the voltage to ramp to a certain value before it starts activating components. For example, the power management controller activates the security engine, the USB controller, and other circuits when they reach their voltage values.

Under normal operations, once the microcontrollers activate, the security engine loads its firmware. In this motherboard hack, attackers attempt to trigger an error condition by lowering the voltage. The resulting glitch gives attackers the opportunity to load malicious firmware, which provides full access to information such as biometric data stored in trusted platform module circuits.
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The tunable replica circuit protects systems against such attacks.

While no evidence of a motherboard exploit used in this manner exists, defenses need to be incorporated now, before attacks become widespread.
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Tunable Replica Circuit for Fault-Injection Detection
(PDF): https://i.blackhat.com/USA-22/Wednesday/US-22-Nemiroff-Fault-Injection-Detection-Circuits.pdf

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