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News hardware & software 18 March 2019, 16:31

author: Bart Swiatek

AMD CPUs Non-susceptible to Spoiler Exploit

AMD informed that its CPUs are resistant to the recently-discovered dangerous exploit known as Spoiler, which makes it possible to steal sensitive data from the CPU's cache.

AMD CPUs Non-susceptible to Spoiler Exploit - picture #1
AMD CPUs are resistant to Spoiler.

IN A NUTSHELL:

  1. Researchers have discovered a new dangerous exploit, Spoiler, which uses a security vulnerability in Intel Core series CPU;
  2. AMD has confirmed that its products are not susceptible to the new threat.

Scientists from the universities of Worcester and Lübeck recently reported finding a new CPU security vulnerability, called Spoiler. Only CPUs from the Intel Core family are at risk – from the first Core 2 Duo, to modern Coffee-lake series. The researchers failed to find a similar vulnerability in AMD's products.

Now we have received an official confirmation from Santa Clara – AMD processors are insusceptible to the vulnerability. Therefore, both the company's employees and users of its products can rest easy.

{quote} We are aware of the report of a new security exploit called SPOILER which can gain access to partial address information during load operations. We believe that our products are not susceptible to this issue because of our unique processor architecture. The SPOILER exploit can gain access to partial address information above address bit 11 during load operations. We believe that our products are not susceptible to this issue because AMD processors do not use partial address matches above address bit 11 when resolving load conflicts. {/quote}

Spoiler uses a speculative data loading mechanism that enables the processor to predict subsequent operations to improve performance. Malware can exploit the vulnerability to access information stored in the processor cache (such as passwords or other personal data). The exploit is yet another – after Spectre and Meltdown – problem of the type that has been recently discovered in commonly used CPUs.

  1. AMD – official website