Intel ups protection against physical chip attacks in Alder Lake

Intel has disclosed how it may be able to protect systems against some physical threats by repurposing circuitry originally designed to counter variations in voltage and timing that may occur as silicon circuits age. The research was presented by Intel at the Black Hat USA 2022 cybersecurity conference this week, and details …

[Pirate Dave]

"...rather than modifying or cutting open the package itself to directly access the silicon."

This is an issue? People cutting through the plastic(?) of the chip itself to get down to the connector pads or even the transistors/circuits on the die? Or am I just misunderstanding? Seems like an awful lot of work that needs an awful lot of very high-precision equipment to pull off without torching the die itself. Probably also requires an agency of three or four letters.

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is an issue?

Single and Multiple Laser Fault Injections are popular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj1nVJypXPM as well as focused ion beams and probing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl9p5Y7fbbY

It does require specialised equipment, but none on it is beyond the capabilities of an individual with enough knowledge who wishes to access normally inaccessible security keys.

[Pirate Dave]

Damn, I had no idea. Thanks mate.

[Herring`]

Hmm

Hardware people: We think we have a fix to a problem which requires timing attacks to potentially gain access to Ring 0 data

Software people: git pull