GPUBreach GPU Rowhammer Attack Can Enable System-Wide Privilege Escalation
Summary
University of Toronto researchers say GPUBreach uses GDDR6 Rowhammer bit flips to corrupt GPU page tables, giving an unprivileged CUDA kernel GPU memory access that may be chained through NVIDIA driver bugs to CPU-side escalation, even with IOMMU enabled.
Key points
- Researchers say GPUBreach uses Rowhammer bit flips in GDDR6 to corrupt GPU page tables.
- The corruption can give an unprivileged CUDA kernel arbitrary GPU memory read/write access.
- Researchers say that access may be chained with NVIDIA driver memory-safety bugs for CPU-side privilege escalation and potential system-wide compromise.
- The researchers demonstrated the attack using an NVIDIA RTX A6000; they say IOMMU alone does not stop it.
- They describe consumer GPUs without ECC as unmitigated; ECC may not reliably address multi-bit flips.
- The researchers reported the findings to NVIDIA, Google, AWS, and Microsoft. Google acknowledged the report and awarded a $600 bounty; NVIDIA said it may update an existing security notice.
Article Details
- Event Type
- Researchers disclosed GPUBreach, a GPU Rowhammer attack that corrupts GPU page tables and can enable privilege escalation.
- Impact
- An unprivileged CUDA kernel can gain arbitrary GPU memory read/write access after GPU page-table corruption. The researchers say this capability can be chained with NVIDIA driver memory-safety bugs to potentially achieve CPU-side escalation and full system compromise, including a root shell, even with IOMMU enabled. The article reports that consumer GPUs without ECC are unmitigated against the attack.
Vendors
Amazon Web ServicesResearchers from the University of Toronto disclosed the issue to NVIDIA, Google, AWS, and Microsoft and will publish a paper and reproduction package at IEEE S&P on April 13.GoogleResearchers from the University of Toronto disclosed the issue to NVIDIA, Google, AWS, and Microsoft and will publish a paper and reproduction package at IEEE S&P on April 13.MicrosoftResearchers from the University of Toronto disclosed the issue to NVIDIA, Google, AWS, and Microsoft and will publish a paper and reproduction package at IEEE S&P on April 13.NvidiaAttackers can chain GPU access to CPU-side escalation by exploiting NVIDIA driver memory-safety bugs, enabling full system compromise.