Warm-Boot Attack on Modern DRAMs

Abstract

Memory plays a critical role in storing almost all computation data for various applications, including those with sensitive data such as bank transactions and critical business management. As a result, protecting memory security from attackers with physical access is ultimately important. Various memory attacks have been proposed, among which “cold boot” and RowHammer are two leading examples. DRAM manufacturers have deployed a series of protection mechanisms to counter these attacks. Even with the latest protection techniques, DRAM may still be vulnerable to attackers with physical access. In this paper, we proposed a novel “warm boot” attack which utilizes external power supplies to bypass the existing protection mechanisms and steal the data from the modern SODIMM DDR4 memory. The proposed “warm boot” attack is applied to various DRAM chips from different brands. Based on our experiments, the “warm boot” attack can achieve as high as 94% data recovery rate from SODIMM DDR4 memory.