Apple Silicon chips powering iPhones and Macs have a new vulnerability that goes by the name "Augury," which could end up leaking the data of its users, according to a recent finding by cybersecurity researchers.
LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 24: LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 24: Apple launches the iPhone 13 in the UK at its Regent Street store on September 24, 2021 in London, England.
Apple Silicon Chips' New Vulnerability
However, the researchers said that the new vulnerability found on most Apple devices is still currently not much of a concern.
As per a news story by Apple Insider, cybersecurity researchers have found a microarchitectural flaw in the Silicon chips of the Cupertino-based tech giant.
It is worth noting that almost all of the devices of Apple currently use its homegrown Silicon chips, such as the iPhones, iPads, MacBook Air models, MacBook Pro models, iMacs, and the all-new Mac Studio.
To be more precise, the researchers found the flaw in the A14 chips, which the fourth-generation iPad Air and the iPhone 12 series, including the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Max, feature.
The cybersecurity researchers also discovered the same flaw on the M1 and M1 Max chips of the Cupertino tech giant, which powers numerous Macs and iPads, including the Mac mini, iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, as well as the fifth-generation iPad Air, and the iPad Pro.
CORTE MADERA, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 27: The MacBook Pro laptop is displayed at an Apple Store on June 27, 2019 in Corte Madera, California.
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Researchers' Findings on Apple Silicon
According to a recent report by Digital Trends, the researchers were Michael Flanders from the University of Washington, along with Jose Rodrigo Sanchez Vicarte, who is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
They said in their published findings that the flaw in the Silicon chips is from the Date-Memory Dependent Prefetcher or DMP implementation of Apple.
Digital Trends further said in its report that the vulnerability could potentially leak the data because of an issue with the prefetcher of Apple Silicon chips.
Kohlbrenner, one of the researchers, said that "classical prefetchers look only at the stream of previous addresses accessed. DMPs also consider the content of the previously prefetched memory."
He went on to add that "inherently, the DMP's choice thus reveals something about the content of memory."
The flaw itself is a little too technical and complicated for most folks out there. But Apple Insider simply puts it this way: the Silicon chips could start leaking data that it failed to read due to the flaw.
Nevertheless, the two researchers said that the vulnerability found on Apple's in-house chips is not "that bad."
Meanwhile, Digital Trends noted in its story that the cybersecurity experts have already raised the issue to the Cupertino giant.
So now that Apple knows about it, it shouldn't take a couple of months until a patch that fixes this vulnerability starts rolling out to iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
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