TEE.fail: Researchers Break Intel SGX/TDX and AMD SEV-SNP with Sub-$1,000 DDR5 Memory Bus Attack

Researchers from Georgia Tech and Purdue University have demonstrated that even current server-grade TEEs, including Intel SGX, TDX and AMD SEV-SNP, can be compromised via a DDR5 memory bus interposition attack conducted with a sub-£1,000 hardware setup.

In their study, titled “TEE[.]fail: Breaking Trusted Execution Environments via DDR5 Memory Bus Interposition,” they used a low-budget interposer to observe and manipulate DDR5 memory transactions and managed to extract Intel’s Provisioning Certification Key, enabling forged attestation reports that could impersonate trusted hardware to remote services.

The experiments targeted confidential virtual machines running on 5th-generation Intel Xeon and AMD Zen 5 processors, exposing vulnerabilities even in server deployments that rely on deterministic AES-XTS memory encryption. The researchers demonstrated attacks against AMD’s SEV-SNP and against NVIDIA Confidential Computing environments linked to Intel’s TDX ecosystem, highlighting the potential to intercept confidential transactions or host unprotected workloads while bypassing attestation.

Following responsible disclosure, Intel was informed in April 2025, NVIDIA in June 2025, and AMD in August 2025, with vendors noting they were considering issuing statements alongside the paper’s public release.