The vulnerability was found in 11 chips from seven GPU makers, including well-known chips like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and devices like Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro and M2 MacBook Air. While Apple has shipped fixes with its latest M3 and A17 processors, the vulnerability is still present in millions of existing iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks that depend on previous generations of Apple silicon. The researchers did not find evidence of the vulnerability in Nvidia, Intel, or Arm GPUs.
Key takeaways:
- Researchers have discovered a vulnerability, named LeftoverLocals, in several mainstream GPU chips, including those from Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, that could allow an attacker to steal large amounts of data from a GPU’s memory.
- The vulnerability is a significant concern as GPUs are increasingly being used for AI and machine learning applications, and these chips have not been designed with data privacy as a top priority.
- To exploit the vulnerability, attackers would need to have some level of operating system access on the target device. The attack could expose data such as queries and responses generated by large language models (LLMs).
- While Apple has shipped fixes with its latest M3 and A17 processors, the vulnerability is still present in millions of existing iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks that depend on previous generations of Apple silicon.