GPUHammer: New RowHammer Attack Variant Compromises AI Model Integrity on NVIDIA GPUs
NVIDIA is advising customers to activate System-level Error Correction Codes (ECC) as a safeguard against a newly identified variant of the RowHammer attack targeting its graphics processing units (GPUs). “The likelihood of successful RowHammer exploitation varies depending on DRAM device, platform, design specifications, and system settings,” the company noted in a recent advisory. Named GPUHammer, this marks the first incident of a RowHammer exploit impacting NVIDIA GPUs, such as the A6000 with GDDR6 memory. This attack allows malicious users to manipulate other users’ data by inducing bit flips in GPU memory. Researchers from the University of Toronto highlighted a particularly alarming outcome: the accuracy of an AI model can plummet from 80% to below 1%. RowHammer poses a similar risk to modern DRAMs as Spectre and Meltdown do for contemporary CPUs, representing critical hardware-level security vulnerabilities.
GPUHammer: New RowHammer Attack Variant Threatens AI Performance on NVIDIA GPUs On July 12, 2025, NVIDIA issued a critical advisory urging its customers to activate System-level Error Correction Codes (ECC) to combat a newly revealed variant of RowHammer attacks targeting its graphics processing units (GPUs). Identified as GPUHammer, this attack…
GPUHammer: New RowHammer Attack Variant Compromises AI Model Integrity on NVIDIA GPUs
NVIDIA is advising customers to activate System-level Error Correction Codes (ECC) as a safeguard against a newly identified variant of the RowHammer attack targeting its graphics processing units (GPUs). “The likelihood of successful RowHammer exploitation varies depending on DRAM device, platform, design specifications, and system settings,” the company noted in a recent advisory. Named GPUHammer, this marks the first incident of a RowHammer exploit impacting NVIDIA GPUs, such as the A6000 with GDDR6 memory. This attack allows malicious users to manipulate other users’ data by inducing bit flips in GPU memory. Researchers from the University of Toronto highlighted a particularly alarming outcome: the accuracy of an AI model can plummet from 80% to below 1%. RowHammer poses a similar risk to modern DRAMs as Spectre and Meltdown do for contemporary CPUs, representing critical hardware-level security vulnerabilities.
