This makes them particularly challenging to predict accurately. The IBP uses a combination of global history and branch address to make these predictions.

Researchers from the University of California have unveiled a novel high-precision Branch Target Injection (BTI) attack, dubbed “Indirector,” that exploits vulnerabilities in the Indirect Branch Predictor (IBP) and the Branch Target Buffer (BTB) of high-end Intel CPUs, specifically the Raptor Lake and Alder Lake generations.

The Indirect Branch Predictor (IBP) is a critical hardware component in modern CPUs designed to predict the target addresses of indirect branches, which are control flow instructions whose target address is computed at runtime.

By simplifying the search for tag aliasing, the iBranch Locator significantly reduces the effort required to locate victim IBP entries compared to previous methods.

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The Indirect attack leverages a custom tool called iBranch Locator, which efficiently locates any indirect branch within the IBP without prior history information.

However, when it comes to the “information part of the puzzle,” Mason sees great scaling potential. This is associated less with the prototype part itself, and more with the process for 3D printing those prototypes. “What this technology allows me to do is create a prototype part and at the same time, create a prototype process,” explains Mason. “So I’m creating the part in the same process that I would go to scale with.”

“When you look at all the projects globally, what this is really doing is enabling people to do things that would not happen in any other world because there just isn’t enough capacity. It’s hard to put a price on that” states Mason. Mason views 3D printing as an “enabling technology more than a cost reduction technology.”

Nexa3D’s NXE400 printers are being used in combination with Addifab’s freeform injection molding (FIM) technology and xMOLD soluble resin, to prototype injection mold tooling for Wilson’s youth baseball bat grips. Nexa3D acquired Addifab in March of this year.

These benefits are key to allowing Wilson to test more ideas, without worrying about the cost implications of a failed iteration. When using traditional manufacturing methods, Mason explains how the company would often commit a “tremendous amount of resources, and if we’re wrong it’s really expensive to change.”

This tool divides the locating process into two steps: identifying the IBP set where the victim’s indirect branch is located and searching for tag aliasing.

Alex is a Technology Journalist at 3D Printing Industry who enjoys researching and writing articles covering a wide variety of topics. Possessing a BA in military history and an MA in History of War, he has a keen interest in additive manufacturing applications within the defense and aerospace industries.

US based sporting equipment manufacturer Wilson Sporting Goods are leveraging 3D printing technology from Nexa3D, a high-speed resin 3D printer manufacturer.

Security researchers Luyi Li, Hosein Yavarzadeh, and Dean Tullsen named the attack Indirector. This attack exploits weaknesses in the Indirect Branch Predictor (IBP) and the Branch Target Buffer (BTB) to circumvent current defenses and jeopardize CPU security.

Researchers found that IBP in modern Intel CPUs has a structure with three tables. Each table is a 2-way set associative and is indexed with different global history lengths.

In relation to 3D printing and consumer goods more generally, both Mason and Staal view mass customization as being key. Staal highlights the personalized hearing aid and dental aligner industries as incorporating additive manufacturing to achieve million part production runs. Staal states that millions of hearing aid shells are produced a year, with tens of thousands of 3D printers running in parallel.

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“There’s challenges around printing parts from a material standpoint, from a surface finish standpoint, and even something as trivial as color is complicated.” The fact that additive manufacturing primarily produces mono-material objects is something which Mason views as limiting growth of 3D printing within this industry. “Until we can get multiple materials interacting at the same time, I don’t foresee 3D printing solving any consumer projects,” claims Mason.

Once the prototype part has been designed, the mold is 3D printed using Nexa3D’s Lubricant Sublayer Photo-curing (LSPc) process. Here, multiple prototype tools can be produced in a single 3D print, with one example test run collectively 3D printing 6 different molds (12 pieces) in 9 hours. The part is then injection molded, followed by post-processing using Addifabs curing system and dissolvable resin.

Additionally, the direct cost savings are also notable, with “the raw material and labor inputs going down in an order of magnitude of 10.” According to Mason, a part that would have cost $4,000 or $5,000 previously, can now be additively manufactured for $500.

Mason does envisage significant developments in speed and 3D print size. However, within the consumer goods sector, 3D printing seems set to compliment legacy technologies such as injection molding, rather than superseding them.

Mason highlights that this process for 3D printing tooling is not scalable in the traditional sense of mass production. “I don’t visualize a scenario where we’re making 1000s of parts using this technology.” This is mainly due to raw material costs associated with this method of tooling.

Similarly, Staal claims that the concept of scalability takes on a slightly different meaning when considering injection molding tooling. Whilst conventional injection molding is quite binary in nature, Staal points to 3D printing as providing the opportunity “to move into scale at a pace that is a little less of a leap of faith,” and ultimately achieving the “right level of productivity for each step of your product lifecycle at the lowest possible costs.”

3D Printing offers substantial time savings within the prototyping process, thanks to the speed and quantity at which the molds can be 3D printed.

Mason argues that there are still a number of challenges 3D printing needs to overcome before the technology moves beyond prototyping, and we see mass-produced 3D printed parts in the consumer’s hands.

This collaboration between Nexa and Wilson is said to offer increased design freedom, substantial time savings, and greater R&D flexibility.

Incorporating Nexa’s 3D printing technology into Wilson’s prototyping workflow has significantly streamlined the R&D process.

3D Printing Industry recently spoke with Lasse Staal, Director of Business Development at Nexa3D, and Wilson’s Director of Advanced Manufacturing Glen Mason, to learn more about this project, and the role 3D printing plays within the consumer goods industry.

“It’s a much faster, much simpler way to get to part,” comments Mason. Indeed, Mason claims that “conservatively we’d see at least a 6x improvement between the time it takes to get a prototype in a traditional world, and the time it takes to get a prototype in an additive world.”

Intel was informed of these findings in February 2024 and has since communicated the issues to other affected hardware and software vendors. The full details of the Indirector attack will be presented at the upcoming USENIX Security Symposium in August 2024.

The exact index and tag hashing functions, crucial for launching precise BTI attacks, were identified, allowing attackers to manipulate the prediction of indirect branches and redirect the program’s control flow to a malicious target address.

Staal also highlights Nexa3D’s wide material compatibility as scaling high volume production runs. “You need to be able to make as many things as possible with one manufacturing setup,” claims Staal. With over 30 compatible materials, Nexa3D also offers an open materials program, which allows for the use of non-Nexa3D developed material.

“Traditionally, we have a subtractive model. We design, design for manufacture, do the tooling design, cut tooling, and then eventually mold parts,” explains Mason. “In this case, we’re working from the part design and we can bypass the design for manufacturing and mold design steps.”

Ultimately, 3D printing removes the limitations which would have traditionally prevented a number of projects from getting off the ground.

3D printing allows Wilson to “fail fast and learn faster”, according to Staal.  “In the economy of today, that learning is really a key currency because if you learn faster than your competition, you get ahead by a factor of many.”

As a result, on any given day, Nexa3D 3D printers can participate in multiple different production runs and different production lines. “Instead of having one machine doing one specific job all day long, one machine can contribute to the manufacturing of a lot of different products,” offering significant potential for scalability, Staal claims.

These tables use a hash function to compute the index and tag based on the global history and the branch instruction address.

By reverse engineering the IBP, the researchers have comprehensively analyzed its size, structure, and prediction mechanisms, revealing new attack vectors that can bypass existing defenses and compromise CPU security.