ETH Zurich researchers disclosed Inception, a speculative-execution attack that can influence a processor's future predictions and expose protected information on affected AMD processors. Daniel Trujillo, Johannes Wikner and Kaveh Razavi investigated how transient execution can train prediction mechanisms, allowing an attacker to steer later speculative behaviour even when existing defences are enabled. The work extended the laboratory's investigation of weaknesses in modern processor prediction systems.
The researchers informed AMD in February 2023 before publishing their findings in August alongside mitigation information. The vulnerability was assigned CVE-2023-20569 and presented at USENIX Security. Unlike a conventional application bug, the weakness involves interactions between processor hardware and the software protections built around it. The disclosure identified a new route to privileged-data leakage and prompted changes to the defences for affected systems.
