Researchers Demonstrate Critical Rowhammer Attacks on NVIDIA GPUs, Enabling Full System Compromise

Security researchers have demonstrated a critical new attack vector targeting NVIDIA GPUs through Rowhammer-style memory exploits, marking a significant departure from traditional CPU-based Rowhammer attacks. Unlike classical CPU Rowhammer, which exploits row buffer adjacency in DRAM, GPU Rowhammer leverages the specific memory access patterns and cache hierarchy unique to NVIDIA's GPU architecture. The attacks work by inducing bit flips in GPU memory through repeated accesses to adjacent memory rows, exploiting the high-bandwidth memory systems that prioritize throughput over error correction. These bit flips can corrupt critical GPU kernel data, driver state, or inter-process isolation structures, creating a pathway for privilege escalation and lateral movement within a shared system.