Scientists from the Computer Security Group (COMSEC) at the ETH Zürich college, in conjunction with Google, have published a proof-of-concept attack on DDR5 RAM called Phoenix, with the CVE number 2025-6202. The new attack causes bit-flips in memory, leading to a set of vulnerabilities that includes high-level privilege escalation. Phoenix adeptly bypasses DDR5's preventive measures for Rowhammer-style attacks, and neither ECC nor ODECC (on-die ECC) are of help.
It's worth noting that COMSEC only tested the attacks on an AMD Zen 4 platform, against 15 SK hynix DDR5 DIMMs from 2021-2024. The team states it chose the largest DRAM vendor, as the analysis is time-intensive even with the help of dedicated FPGA test boards. Having said that, the research is part of a Google-led effort for better RAM security in cooperation with JEDEC, the consortium that defines memory standards. It's also not the first time that COMSEC has worked on RAM security, having previously cooperated with VUSec to create the TRRespass attack.
