New Rowhammer Exploits use Hardware Vulnerabilities to Root LG, Samsung, and Motorola Devices

New Rowhammer exploit successfully roots LG, Samsung, and Motorola devices using bit-flips. The exploit was previously thought to be unviable.

By  Doug Lynch Oct 24, 2016

Google is constantly at war with hackers seeking to maliciously exploit security vulnerabilities in their products. Back in the middle of 2014, Google assembled a team of security analysts called 'Project Zero' to report zero-day exploits to the company so they can be patched before any nefarious third-party can take advantage of the undisclosed security hole. One such vulnerability, dubbed the 'Rowhammer' exploits, involves repeatedly accessing a row of memory to cause 'bit-flips' in adjacent rows of memory. This exploit occurs in some DRAM devices and can be used to gain read-write privileges to all of physical memory even within a user-space process.