Intel and AMD trusted enclaves, the backbone of network security, fall to physical attacks

In Ars Technica’s report published on 30 September 2025, researchers detail two attacks, Battering RAM and Wiretap, that compromise Intel SGX and AMD SEV-SNP trusted execution environments (TEEs) by placing an interposer between the CPU and memory. The interposers exploit deterministic encryption used by SGX and SEV-SNP, allowing either active data manipulation or passive decryption of protected memory, undermining the confidentiality and integrity promises of these TEEs.

Battering RAM can cost less than $50 in equipment and enables replay and active decryption across both SGX and SEV-SNP on DDR4 memory, while Wiretap, limited to SGX on DDR4, offers passive decryption with a higher setup cost of about $500 to $1,000. The researchers note both attacks rely on a memory interposer to observe ciphertext as data moves between memory and the processor, and that the TEEs explicitly exclude physical attacks from their threat model.

The piece also discusses how some cloud services rely on these protections despite such vulnerabilities and suggests replacing deterministic encryption with stronger protections, though scalability remains a challenge.