CPU and GPU Exploitation

CPU and GPU exploitation involves leveraging hardware vulnerabilities in processing units to escalate privileges within a compromised system. During the Deepening Control phase of an attack, adversaries who have already established initial access can exploit design flaws, side-channel vulnerabilities, or implementation issues in CPU/GPU architectures such as Spectre, Meltdown, or specific vendor vulnerabilities like AMD SEV bypass techniques. These exploits enable attackers to access protected memory regions, extract sensitive information across security boundaries, or execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. For instance, attackers might exploit speculative execution features to access kernel memory from user-space processes, bypass isolation mechanisms between virtual machines, or leverage GPU-specific vulnerabilities to achieve cross-tenant attacks in cloud environments. These techniques are particularly valuable in privilege escalation as they often circumvent software-based security controls by exploiting fundamental hardware design weaknesses that cannot be fully mitigated through patching.