Spectre-v2 BTR Exploit Circumvents Linux Memory Protections Despite Mitigations

A new Spectre-v2 variant called Branch Target Reuse (BTR) exploits JIT engines in Linux and other systems to leak memory despite existing mitigations. The attack bypasses security protections by leveraging stale branch target buffer entries in speculative execution mechanisms.

A group of academics from VUSec and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna have disclosed details of a new Spectre CPU vulnerability variant that affects Just-In-Time (JIT) engines present in web browsers, language runtimes, and the operating system kernel, across multiple CPU vendors.

The new Spectre-v2 variant has been codenamed Branch Target Reuse (BTR).

"The key insight is that, while modern CPUs

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