AMD Firmware Gaps Leave Devices Exposed to Spectre-Class Attacks

Binarly Research reported that many AMD-based devices remain vulnerable to speculative execution attacks including Spectre v1, Spectre v2, and Retbleed because firmware and hardware mitigations are not being developed, validated, and delivered consistently across the ecosystem. The findings point to a broad firmware attack surface in UEFI and System Management Mode (SMM), where weaknesses below the operating system can leave systems exposed even after years of industry attention on side-channel defenses.

The research says asynchronous patching across the hardware and firmware supply chain, combined with limited advisory transparency, has left protections uneven throughout device lifecycles. Binarly warned that these foundational hardware security issues persist in modern AMD environments despite broader emphasis on confidential computing, creating conditions in which attackers could still exploit older speculative execution flaws against current systems.