Hardware attacks

These target the physical components of the chip, often requiring specialized equipment and physical access.

ÆPIC Leak (CVE-2022-21233)

The CPU's Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller could expose stale data directly to untrusted software, letting attackers read secrets from SGX enclaves.

Mitigation: Intel microcode and SDK patches flush the APIC state.

VoltPillager (Voltage fault injection)

Attackers rapidly altered the power supply to SGX CPUs to bypass memory protections and read secrets from enclaves.

Mitigation: Modern TEEs include power integrity monitors that shut down execution on abnormal voltage behavior. VM-based TEEs (like Intel TDX) further isolate sensitive logic from these low-level attacks.

Laser fault injection

Focused lasers were used to flip individual bits on a chip, interfering with secure operations and enabling privilege escalation.

Mitigation: Some secure chips integrate tamper sensors that detect physical intrusion and wipe memory if a breach is attempted.