Rowhammering Storage Devices

Abstract

Peripheral devices like SSDs are growing more complex, to the point they are effectively small computers themselves. Our position is that this trend creates a new kind of attack vector, where untrusted software could use peripherals strictly as intended to accomplish unintended goals. To exemplify, we set out to rowhammer the DRAM component of a simplified SSD firmware, issuing regular I/O requests that manage to flip bits in a way that triggers sensitive information leakage. We conclude that such attacks might soon be feasible, and we argue that systems need principled approaches for securing peripherals against them.