BranchScope: a new side-channel attack on directional branch predictor

D. Evtyushkin et al., “BranchScope: A New Side-Channel Attack on Directional Branch Predictor” #PDFhttps://t.co/J9ivsyLAyz

— Arrigo Triulzi (@cynicalsecurity) March 27, 2018

BranchScope : A New Side-Channel Attack on
Directional Branch Predictor : https://t.co/8xXJ53Ir2k (pdf) pic.twitter.com/IIXzsSMQX6

— Binni Shah (@binitamshah) March 27, 2018

Tl,dr: You can infer the branch taken by arbitrary victim programs from userspace. Even through an SGX enclave. The authors didn’t identify any really interesting applications though. (Old crypto libraries where branch implies key, etc.)

Still, good work and great paper. https://t.co/l5EoYvPmho

— Jason Syversen (@JSyversen) March 30, 2018