NEW TEE.FAIL SIDE-CHANNEL ATTACK EXTRACTS SECRETS FROM INTEL AND AMD DDR5 SECURE ENCLAVES

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

TEE.Fail is a side-channel attack that targets DDR5 memory systems which uses a $1,000 interposition device to physically monitor memory traffic and extract cryptographic keys from Intel TDX/SGX and AMD SEV-SNP trusted execution environments. The attack exploits weaknesses in AES-XTS deterministic encryption used by both vendors, enabling attackers to record memory operations between CPU and DRAM, extract ECDSA attestation keys, and compromise confidential virtual machines by faking attestation processes. Both Intel and AMD have classified this as an out-of-scope physical attack with no planned mitigations, leaving software countermeasures as the only defense option despite their high implementation costs.