Overview#

Rowhammer is an unintended and undesirable side effect in dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) in which memory cells leak their charges and interact electrically between themselves, possibly leaking or changing the contents of nearby memory rows that were not addressed in the original memory access.

Rowhammer bypass of the isolation between DRAM memory cells results from the high cell density in modern DRAM, and can be triggered by specially crafted memory access patterns that rapidly activate the same memory rows numerous times.

Rowhammer Exploitation#

Rowhammer is a complex and requires a high Attack Effort possible to be used as an Attack. Knowledge of the devices hardware memory and Operating System is required to be effective.

Rowhammer effect has been used in some privilege escalation computer security exploits and network-based attacks are also theoretically possible in a fast network connection.

Rowhammer has been demonstrated as a vulnerability

• tracked as CVE-2015-0565 against Google Native Client by Project Zero
• tracked as CVE-2016-6728 against Android Operating System

More Information#

There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:

• Web Blog_blogentry_120819_1

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• [#1] - Row_hammer - based on information obtained 2019-08-12
• * [#2] - CVE-2016-6728 Detail - based on information obtained 2019-08-12