Intel and Microsoft have confirmed that nearly all Intel processors, prior to the 12th generation CPUs, are vulnerable to a new side-channel Transient Execution or Speculative execution attack codenamed Gather Data Sampling (GDS) vulnerability "Downfall".
The new GDS flaw, called “Downfall”, is tracked at CVE-2022-40982.
Intel says its 12th generation and newer chips, such as Alder Lake and Raptor Lake, come with Intel's Trust Domain eXtension, or TDX, which isolates virtual machines (VMs) from virtual machine managers (VMMs ) or hypervisors, therefore isolating them from the rest of the hardware and the system.
These isolated virtual machines are essentially what are called “Trust Domains” and hence the name.
In support document KB5029778, Microsoft he says:
Microsoft is aware of a new attack called collection data sampling (GDS) or “Downfall”. This vulnerability could be used to extract data from affected CPUs across security boundaries, such as from the user-kernel, processes, virtual machines (VMs), and trusted execution environments.
Intel gives more details για το Downfall ή το GDS στον ιστότοπό της εξηγώντας πώς οι επιτιθέμενοι μπορούν να εκμεταλλευτούν παλαιότερα δεδομένα στους επεξεργαστές 7th Gen (Kaby Lake), 8th Gen (Coffee Lake), 9th Gen (Coffee Lake refresh), 10th Gen (Comet Lake) και 11th Gen (Rocket Lake σε desktop with ή Tiger Lake σε κινητά).
