Rowhammer : From DRAM faults to escalating privileges

In 2014, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Intel Labs found that due to the increased density within dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) technology, it gets challenging to prevent cell charges from interacting with adjacent cells. Through rapidly accessing the same row in DRAM, data in adjacent rows can be corrupted. This evolves to the vulnerability “Rowhammer” which can be used to exploit memory management techniques in different environments, inject errors in cryptographic protocols and perform privilege escalation attacks. In this article, we provide an overview of Rowhammer attacks and the threat it poses to current computer devices. Further, we describe an implementation of the Phys Feng Shui exploitation technique on an LG Nexus 5 mobile device and show that it is a real threat against mobile devices. We also discuss countermeasure and future research directions. a aThis article is published online by Computer Weekly as part of the 2020 Royal Holloway information security thesis series https://www.computerweekly.com/ehandbook/Royal-Holloway-Rowhammer-from-DRAM-faultsto-escalating-privileges. It is based on an MSc dissertation written as part of the MSc in Information Security at the ISG, Royal Holloway, University of London. The full thesis is published on the ISG’s website at https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/informationsecurity/research/explore-our-research/isg-technical-reports/.