Analyzing and Exploiting Branch Mispredictions in Microcode
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866917899629756416 |
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| author | Mosier, Nicholas Nemati, Hamed Mitchell, John C. Trippel, Caroline |
| author_facet | Mosier, Nicholas Nemati, Hamed Mitchell, John C. Trippel, Caroline |
| contents | We present uSpectre, a new class of transient execution attacks that exploit microcode branch mispredictions to transiently leak sensitive data. We find that many long-known and recently-discovered transient execution attacks, which were previously categorized as Spectre or Meltdown variants, are actually instances of uSpectre on some Intel microarchitectures. Based on our observations, we discover multiple new uSpectre attacks and present a defense against uSpectre vulnerabilities, called uSLH. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_12890 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Analyzing and Exploiting Branch Mispredictions in Microcode Mosier, Nicholas Nemati, Hamed Mitchell, John C. Trippel, Caroline Cryptography and Security Hardware Architecture We present uSpectre, a new class of transient execution attacks that exploit microcode branch mispredictions to transiently leak sensitive data. We find that many long-known and recently-discovered transient execution attacks, which were previously categorized as Spectre or Meltdown variants, are actually instances of uSpectre on some Intel microarchitectures. Based on our observations, we discover multiple new uSpectre attacks and present a defense against uSpectre vulnerabilities, called uSLH. |
| title | Analyzing and Exploiting Branch Mispredictions in Microcode |
| topic | Cryptography and Security Hardware Architecture |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12890 |