PortSmash Microarchitecture Attack
PortSmash is a side-channel attack that exploits simultaneous multithreading (SMT) in modern processors to obtain private cryptographic keys. It is a local attack that requires the attacker to have access to the same physical machine as the victim. The attack is based on the fact that SMT allows two threads running on the same physical core to observe each other’s cache-evicted data. This attack is based on the fact that SMT allows two threads running on the same physical core to observe each other’s cache-evicted data. The attack works by having one thread, the spy, monitor the cache-evicted data of the other thread, the victim, while the victim is performing a cryptographic operation. The spy can then use the data it observes to infer the secret cryptographic key used by the victim.