In November 2020, Apple launched a real revolution in the world of computing. With the arrival of fleasApple Silicon, the Apple brand is breaking away from Intel and its processors to offer a second wind to its Macs. The Cupertino company has notably worked on the security of its latest devices to make attacks ever more difficult.
But despite all the precautions taken by the Californian company, a flaw was apparently forgotten en route. At least that's what the cybersecurity company Trail of Bits explains in its latest survey on Apple products. It reveals that “LeftoverLocals” allows attackers to retrieve data processed in GPU local memory on certain devices.
In their report, cybersecurity experts are concerned that such an attack is possible, especially when we know the increasingly important role that GPUs play in the development of language models for applications using artificial intelligence.
iPhone 12 and MacBook Air M2, the two priority targets?
Apple spoke on this subject and declared that for the moment new devices with A17Pro and M3 chips were not affected by this flaw. In its report on the subject, the company Trail of Bits noted that the third generation iPad Air, working with an A12 Bionic chip, had for its part received a patch to counter this flaw.
According to the cybersecurity experts interviewed in this case, most older Apple models have GPUs vulnerable to such an attack. It is therefore a questioniPhone 12sand MacBook Air M2s still sold by Apple on its website.
For the moment, Apple does not seem to have published any security updates on its devices, but as Apple has understood the danger and has already proposed a partial solution for iPads, it should do the same in the next few weeks regarding iPhones and MacBooks.
