Researchers at Graz University of Technology and the Helmholtz Center for Information Security have released their paper on CacheWarp—the latest vulnerability affecting some of the prior generation AMD EPYC CPUs. Titled CVE-2023-20592, the exploit targets first-generation EPYC Naples, second-generation EPYC Rome, and third-generation EPYC Milan. CacheWarp operates by exploiting a vulnerability in AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology, specifically targeting the SEV-ES (Encrypted State) and SEV-SNP (Secure Nested Paging) versions. The attack is a software-based fault injection technique that manipulates the cache memory of a virtual machine (VM) running under SEV. It cleverly forces modified cache lines of the guest VM to revert to their previous state. This action circumvents the integrity checks that SEV-SNP is designed to enforce, allowing the attacker to inject faults without being detected.

Unlike attacks that rely on specific guest VM vulnerabilities, CacheWarp is more versatile and dangerous because it does not depend on the characteristics of the targeted VM. It exploits the underlying architectural weaknesses of AMD SEV, making it a broad threat to systems relying on this technology for security. The CacheWarp attack can bypass robust security measures like encrypted virtualization, posing a significant risk to data confidentiality and integrity in secure computing environments. AMD has issued an update for EPYC Milan with a hot-loadable microcode patch and updated the firmware image without any expected performance degradation. And for the remaining generations, AMD states that no mitigation is available for the first or second generations of EPYC processor (Naples and Rome) since the SEV and SEV-ES features are not designed to protect guest VM memory integrity, and the SEV-SNP is not available.

AMD has published the source code for AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology, the backbone of AMD EPYC processor-based confidential computing virtual machines (VMs) available from cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Compute Infrastructure (OCI). This release from AMD will drive greater transparency for the security industry and provide customers the opportunity to thoroughly review the technology behind confidential computing VMs powered by AMD EPYC processors.

"As a leader in confidential computing, we are committed to a relentless pursuit of innovation and creating modern security features that complement our ecosystem partners' most advanced cloud offerings," said Mark Papermaster, executive vice president and chief technology officer, AMD. "By sharing the underpinnings of our SEV technology, we are delivering transparency for confidential computing and demonstrating our dedication to open source. Involving the open-source community will further strengthen this critical technology for our partners and customers who expect nothing less than the utmost protection for their most valuable asset - their data."

Three leading European generative AI startups joined NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang this week to talk about the new era of computing. More than 500 developers, researchers, entrepreneurs and executives from across Europe and further afield packed into the Spindler and Klatt, a sleek, riverside gathering spot in Berlin. Huang started the reception by touching on the message he delivered Monday at the Berlin Summit for Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE), an international collaboration focused on climate science. He shared details of NVIDIA's Earth-2 initiative and how accelerated computing, AI-augmented simulation and interactive digital twins drive climate science research.

Before sitting down for a fireside chat with the founders of the three startups, Huang introduced some "special guests" to the audience—four of the world's leading climate modeling scientists, who he called the "unsung heroes" of saving the planet. "These scientists have dedicated their careers to advancing climate science," said Huang. "With the vision of EVE, they are the architects of the new era of climate science."

AI and accelerated computing will help climate researchers achieve the miracles they need to achieve breakthroughs in climate research, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said during a keynote Monday at the Berlin Summit for the Earth Virtualization Engines initiative. "Richard Feynman once said that "what I can't create, I don't understand" and that's the reason why climate modeling is so important," Huang told 180 attendees at the Harnack House in Berlin, a storied gathering place for the region's scientific and research community. "And so the work that you do is vitally important to policymakers to researchers to the industry," he added.

To advance this work, the Berlin Summit brings together participants from around the globe to harness AI and high-performance computing for climate prediction. In his talk, Huang outlined three miracles that will have to happen for climate researchers to achieve their goals, and touched on NVIDIA's own efforts to collaborate with climate researchers and policymakers with its Earth-2 efforts. The first miracle required will be to simulate the climate fast enough, and with a high enough resolution - on the order of just a couple of square kilometers.

DFI, the world's leading brand in embedded motherboards and industrial computers, was invited to participate in "AMD Datacenter Solutions Day" in September, based on the theme of high-performance computing (HPC). As the first in the world to launch the smallest industrial motherboard equipped with AMD products, DFI partnered with its subsidiary, AEWIN, to present their star products and share how ultra-small products can help the trend of software virtualization technologies in the forum. We hope to optimize the development of diverse services in IoT applications.

AMD invited industry giants to the event to discuss the future of high-performance computing and conduct in-depth discussions with their partners related to high-performance computing, cloud computing, and AI. DFI was a speaker in the digital learning AI session during the event. DFI shared their views on software-defined IoT and explained the role of ultra-small products in the application environment.

Opening a new era of neural graphics that marries AI and simulation, NVIDIA today announced the NVIDIA RTX 6000 workstation GPU, based on its new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. With the new NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPU delivering real-time rendering, graphics and AI, designers and engineers can drive cutting-edge, simulation-based workflows to build and validate more sophisticated designs. Artists can take storytelling to the next level, creating more compelling content and building immersive virtual environments. Scientists, researchers and medical professionals can accelerate the development of life-saving medicines and procedures with supercomputing power on their workstations—all at up to 2-4x the performance of the previous-generation RTX A6000.

Designed for neural graphics and advanced virtual world simulation, the RTX 6000, with Ada generation AI and programmable shader technology, is the ideal platform for creating content and tools for the metaverse with NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise. Incorporating the latest generations of render, AI and shader technologies and 48 GB of GPU memory, the RTX 6000 enables users to create incredibly detailed content, develop complex simulations and form the building blocks required to construct compelling and engaging virtual worlds.

AMD announced that the AMD Pensando Distributed Services Card, powered by the industry's most advanced data processing unit (DPU)1, will be one of the first DPU solutions to support VMware vSphere 8 available from leading server vendors including Dell Technologies, HPE and Lenovo.

As data center applications grow in scale and sophistication, the resulting workloads increase the demand on infrastructure services as well as crucial CPU resources. VMware vSphere 8 aims to reimagine IT infrastructure as a composable architecture with a goal of offloading infrastructure workloads such as networking, storage, and security from the CPU by leveraging the new vSphere Distributed Services Engine, freeing up valuable CPU cycles to be used for business functions and revenue generating applications.

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP), a leading computing, networking, and storage solution innovator, today released the QuCPE-3032 and QuCPE-3034 Network Virtualization Premise Equipment with the QNE Network Software-defined Platform Total Solution. The QuCPE-303x integrates Network Function Virtualization, QuWAN SD-WAN, and the AMIZ Cloud management platform with Intel hardware network acceleration technologies and cybersecurity features. Managed Service Providers, System Integrators and enterprise IT staff can now remotely deploy agile and reliable next-generation multisite virtualized infrastructure via Zero Touch Provisioning with the lowest TCO.

"QNAP aims to build a modern IT room with light, cost-optimized, and agile features. Utilizing VM / VNF / Container technology, a QuCPE with QNE Network software-defined platform total solution replaces dedicated network hardware and transforms traditional IT rooms into a revolutionary virtualized IT room. Small businesses and micro-enterprises can flexibly build multi-site network infrastructure by deploying a QuCPE Series 7 in their headquarters, and the affordable QuCPE Series 3 in their branches and workplaces," said Titan Hsieh, Product Manager of QNAP.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced the expansion of the AMD EPYC processor footprint within the cloud ecosystem, powering the new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) E4 Dense instances. These new instances are part of the Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offerings, enable customers to build and run a hybrid-cloud environment for their VMware based workloads.

Based on 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, the new E4 Dense instances expand the AMD EPYC presence at OCI and are made to support memory and storage intense VMware workloads. The E4 Dense instances utilize the core density and performance capabilities of EPYC processors to provide customers a fast path to a cloud environment, enabling similar performance and advanced security features through enabling the AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) security feature for VMware workloads that they have on-premises.

AMD EPYC class of enterprise processors has gotten infected by as many as 22 different security vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities range anywhere from medium to high severity, affecting all three generations of AMD EPYC processors. This includes AMD Naples, Rome, and Milan generations, where almost all three are concerned with the whole 22 exploits. There are a few exceptions, and you can find that on AMD's website. However, not all seems to be bad. AMD says that "During security reviews in collaboration with Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, potential vulnerabilities in the AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP), AMD System Management Unit (SMU), AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) and other platform components were discovered and have been mitigated in AMD EPYC AGESA PI packages."

AMD has already shipped new mitigations in the form of AGESA updates, and users should not fear if they keep their firmware up to date. If you or your organization is running on AMD EPYC processors, you should update the firmware to avoid any exploits from happening. The latest updates in question are NaplesPI-SP3_1.0.0.G, RomePI-SP3_1.0.0.C, and MilanPI-SP3_1.0.0.4 AGESA versions, which fix all of 22 security holes.

Today, AMD announced its continued momentum and collaboration with Microsoft Azure, who is offering the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processor in the latest generation of Dasv5 and Easv5 Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). Azure is also introducing new confidential VMs, DCasv5 and ECasv5, which use the latest advanced security features available in 3rd Gen EPYC processors, including Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP).

The new Azure confidential VMs, DCasv5 and ECasv5, the first EPYC processor-based confidential VMs at Azure and the first confidential VMs to use SEV-SNP, will enable customers to have the data in their security focused applications encrypted in use, in transit and at rest. The updated Dasv5 VMs, optimized for general purpose workloads, and the Easv5 VMs, optimized for memory-based workloads, deliver better price-performance for most general purpose and memory intensive workloads compared to prior EPYC processor-based Microsoft Azure VMs.

AMD processors have been very good at the field of security, on par with its main competitor, Intel. However, from time to time, researchers find new ways of exploiting a security layer and making it vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. Today, we have information that two new research papers are being published at this year's 15th IEEE Workshop on Offensive Technologies (WOOT'21) happening on May 27th. Both papers are impacting AMD processor security, specifically, they show how AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) is compromised. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich and the University of Lübeck are going to present their papers on CVE-2020-12967 and CVE-2021-26311, respectfully.

While we do not know exact details of these vulnerabilities until papers are presented, we know exactly which processors are affected. As SEV is an enterprise feature, AMD's EPYC lineup is the main target of these two new exploits. AMD says that affected processors are all of the EPYC embedded CPUs and the first, second, and third generation of regular EPYC processors. For third-generation EPYC CPUs, AMD has provided mitigation in SEV-SNP, which can be enabled. For prior generations, the solution is to follow best security practices and try to avoid an exploit.

NVIDIA today introduced a new class of NVIDIA-Certified Systems, bringing AI within reach for organizations that run their applications on industry-standard enterprise data center infrastructure. These include high-volume enterprise servers from top manufacturers, which were announced in January and are now certified to run the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite—which is exclusively certified for VMware vSphere 7, the world's most widely used compute virtualization platform.

Further expanding the NVIDIA-Certified servers ecosystem is a new wave of systems featuring the NVIDIA A30 GPU for mainstream AI and data analytics and the NVIDIA A10 GPU for AI-enabled graphics, virtual workstations and mixed compute and graphics workloads, also announced today.

AMD today highlighted the latest expansion of the AMD EPYC processor ecosystem for virtualized and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) environments with VMware adding support for AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State (SEV-ES) in its newest vSphere release, 7.0U1. With the latest release, VMware vSphere now enables AMD SEV-ES, which is part of AMD Infinity Guard, a robust set of modern, hardware enabled features found in all 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors. In addition to VM memory encryption, SEV-ES also provides encryption of CPU registers and provides VMware customers with easy-to-implement and enhanced security for their environments.

"As the modern data center continues to evolve into a virtualized, hybrid cloud environment, AMD and VMware are working together to make sure customers have access to systems that provide high levels of performance on virtualization workloads, while enabling advanced security features that are simple to implement for better protection of data," said Dan McNamara, senior vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit, AMD. "A virtualized data center with AMD EPYC processors and VMware enables customers to modernize the data center and have access to high-performance and leading-edge security features, across a wide variety of OEM platforms."

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2020 of $1.93 billion, operating income of $173 million, net income of $157 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.13. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $233 million, net income was $216 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.18. "We delivered strong second quarter results, led by record notebook and server processor sales as Ryzen and EPYC revenue more than doubled from a year ago," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "Despite some macroeconomic uncertainty, we are raising our full-year revenue outlook as we enter our next phase of growth driven by the acceleration of our business in multiple markets."

AMD and Google Cloud today announced the beta availability of Confidential Virtual Machines (VMs) for Google Compute Engine powered by 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors, taking advantage of the processors' advanced security features. The first product in the Google Cloud Confidential Computing portfolio, Confidential VMs, enables customers for the first time to encrypt data in-use while it is being processed and not just when at rest and in-transit. Based on the N2D family of VMs for Google Compute Engine, Confidential VMs provide customers high performance processing for the most demanding computational tasks and enable encryption for even the most sensitive data in the cloud while it is being processed.

"At Google Cloud, we believe the future of cloud computing will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where users can be confident that the confidentiality of their data is always under their control. To help customers in making that transition, we've created Confidential VMs, the first product in our Google Cloud Confidential Computing portfolio," said Vint Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist, Google. "By using advanced security technology in the AMD EPYC processors, we've created a breakthrough technology that allows customers to encrypt their data in the cloud while it's being processed and unlock computing scenarios that had previously not been possible."

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP), a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, has added support for Zabbix, the Enterprise-class Network Monitoring Software. With Zabbix, system integrators and IT professionals can easily use QNAP NAS as Centralized Network Management Platforms to control multiple edge devices in real time. Administrators can also deploy Zabbix on multiple NAS to enable Distributed Network Architecture on medium/large-sized networks or to apply High Availability for enhanced network management efficiency and security.

With SNMP compliance and a Web GUI, Zabbix allows users to monitor network services and the CPU utilization, network usage, memory and storage capacity of all the connected SNMP-compliant servers/devices via the Dashboard and Analysis Report. If a default error occurs (for example, a network server is down), administrators are promptly notified via email and SMS, ensuring real-time network control and efficient troubleshooting.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has brought the latest software innovations to the company's most cutting-edge PCIe Gen4 solid state drive (SSD) series, opening up a new paradigm in SSD performance.

"We are combining breakthrough speeds and capacities with revolutionary software solutions as we accelerate expansion in the premium SSD market," said Kye Hyun Kyung, executive vice president of Memory Solution Product & Development at Samsung Electronics. "We plan to introduce additional innovation led by our most advanced (sixth-generation) V-NAND in helping to trigger a lot more growth in the global IT market."

Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) was touted as one of the killer features of AMD EPYC and Ryzen Pro series processors. It involves encryption of parts of the memory of the host machine which house virtual machines (or guests), with encryption keys stored on the processor, so the host has no scope of infiltrating or reading the contents of the guest's memory. This was designed to build trust in cloud-computing and shared hosting industries, so web-present small businesses with sensitive data could have some peace of mind and wouldn't have to spend big on dedicated hosting. A Germany-based IT security research team from Fraunhofer AISEC, thinks otherwise.

Using a technique called "SEVered," the researchers were able to use rogue host-level administrator, or malware within a hypervisor, to bypass SEV and copy decrypted information from the guest machine's memory. The exploit involves alteration of the guest machine's physical memory mappings using standard page tables, so SEV can't properly isolate and encrypt parts of the guest in the physical memory. The exploit is so brazen, that you could pull plaintext information out of compromised guests. The researchers published a paper on SEVered, along with technical details of the exploit.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today released the new "vQTS" virtualization technology that enables users to run multiple virtual QTS operating systems on a QNAP NAS. Based on Virtualization Station, vQTS provides benefits for resource segregation, multi-tenant environments, flexible application deployment, and savings on energy, cost and physical space. vQTS is initially available for the AMD Ryzen-powered TS-x77 NAS series, which delivers high-performance to maximize vQTS utilization for greater business flexibility in management and applications.

AMD today unveiled its big annual driver releases for its consumer-graphics Radeon line, and the professional-graphics Radeon Pro and FirePro lines. The BAR (big annual release) for the latter is titled AMD Radeon Pro Adrenalin Edition 17.12.1 WHQL, and introduces a slew of new features that add value to the company's FirePro and Radeon Pro graphics cards. Since its 2016 BAR (Radeon Pro Crimson ReLive), the company's regular driver updates for enterprises achieved a predictable cadence of the 2nd Wednesday of the 2nd month of each quarter, capped off with a big annual release in December, besides prioritized 24x7 support. This, AMD claims, has been well received by its customers.

With the Radeon Pro Adrenalin Edition, AMD is expanding its software in four key directions - Pro Render, Pro Settings, New Driver Options, and Virtualization. It also chronicles driver releases over 2017 have gradually increased performance levels by up to 16 percent compared to last year's big annual release. AMD expanded the feature-set of ProRender, its in-house and highly modular 3D rendering engine for CAD designers and 3D artists, including its support for Maxon Cinema 4D; interactive viewport de-noising for Blender; a new Game Engine Importer extension that can import geometry and materials in real-time from SolidWorks to Unreal Engine; accelerating VR ports of popular games and professional 3D scenes; and a set of additional features such as PBR Shader for Blender. The drivers also add macOS support for Maya and Blender, which will be implemented "soon," along with support for 2018 releases of 3DSMax and Maya.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the new business-class AMD-powered TS-x73U series NAS; available in 8, 12 and 16-bay models with single and redundant power supply options. With a high-performance AMD Embedded R-Series RX-421ND quad-core CPU (2.1 GHz base, 3.4 GHz boost), a pre-installed dual-port 10GbE SFP+ network card, and two M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD slots (for empowering SSD caching to realize optimized storage efficiency with Qtier technology), the rack-mountable TS-x73U series is ideal for business organizations looking for a secure private cloud and efficient IT infrastructure for 10GbE networks.

With a dual 10GbE configuration, the TS-x73U series is capable of delivering up to 1,567 MB/s throughput, while the accelerated encryption engine with AES-NI enables unmatched encryption performance of up to 1,244 MB/s to boost system performance. Coupled with high scalability, the 10GbE-ready TS-x73U series satisfies virtualization and fast backup/restoration requirements for an ever-growing amount of data that demands higher bandwidth, and facilitates day-to-day operations with greater productivity.

NVM Express, the special interest group behind the NVMe protocol, which enables significantly higher performance on flash-based storage devices, compared to the AHCI protocol, published the NVMe 1.3 specification. This is the most significant update to the protocol since the NVMe 1.2 specification released in 2014. NVMe 1.3, which could be implemented in SSDs, motherboards, and HBA cards starting late-2017 or 2018, introduces several major features that increase performance, endurance, and manageability of flash-based storage devices, such as SSDs.

To begin with, NVMe 1.3 introduces a drive self-test feature similar to SMART. The host machine can now command the drive to perform a self-test without having to mount volumes and expose their contents to OS-based utilities. The self-test parameters could be left up to the drive vendor, and could include hardware tests in addition to data integrity tests. The protocol also adds much needed support for boot-partitions, without needing the motherboard UEFI firmware to store it. The current implementation of motherboards with NVMe booting support involves storing a tiny boot partition with the bootloader on the SPI flash chip of the motherboard which stores the UEFI firmware.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today released the TVS-1582TU - a pioneering 19-inch rack-mountable Thunderbolt 3 NAS that is suited for moving vehicles and outdoor media editing environments. The TVS-1582TU includes four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two 10GbE ports, and can utilize its Thunderbolt 3 ports to have USB-C 3.1 Gen2 (10 Gbps) connections for high-speed data transfer and backups. The collection of high-speed connections provides an ideal 4K solution for SNG/OB van live productions in the fast-paced media industries.

"TV and film production and outdoor broadcasting require on-location recording and editing, and need their videos to be backed up immediately to prevent file loss," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "The TVS-1582TU is designed for this environment, and its 19-inch rack form factor makes it especially usable for SNG/OB van live media production that requires frequent relocation."

QNAP Systems, Inc. today released the new TVS-882ST3, a 2.5" 8-bay Thunderbolt 3 NAS. Powered by an energy-efficient 6th Generation Intel 14nm Core i7/i5 quad-core processor with AES-NI encryption, the TVS-882ST3 includes dual Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, 10GbE 10GBASE-T dual networking ports, USB 3.1 10Gbps Type-C/Type-A ports, and 4K HDMI output to exclusively provide a Thunderbolt/NAS/iSCSI SAN triple solution. The TVS-882ST3 is a compact NAS that can greatly boost workflow collaboration between Thunderbolt 3-enabled Mac and Windows users. It is also ideal for an all-SSD configuration to provide the utmost performance.

The TVS-882ST3 combines versatile high-speed interfaces including Thunderbolt 3, 10GbE, and USB 3.1 (Gen2 10Gbps Type-C and Type-A) in a powerful NAS solution to realize optimized data transfer in different applications," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "with its compact frame and eight 2.5" bays that are ideal for SSDs, the TVS-882ST3 is perfect for small offices and teams looking for a NAS with performance and functionality that is normally reserved for high-end servers."