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I understand the theoretical issues with the Specter-class of bugs: shared machine environments leaking data, javascript in browsers stealing encryption keys et
by berbec 8y ago
I understand the theoretical issues with the Specter-class of bugs: shared machine environments leaking data, javascript in browsers stealing encryption keys etc.
What I don't know is the actual real-world potential for data theft. IIRC, the data could only be stolen at a few k/second and you would need to know which address to start poking at. If my sister-VM has 64GB of ram an 64GB of swap, what are the chances of finding anything before the end of time?
- mcbits 8y ago64 billion bytes at 2,000 per second is 32 million seconds, or 1 year to scan the entire contents of RAM once. Obviously data and processes are going to bounce around in that year, so just peeking randomly and naively at your RAM, the chances are perhaps slim, but not "end of time" levels of slim. Randomly probing millions of different targets, the chance of finding something of value is much higher.