Just one instruction on AMD's 2015-era CPUs gets you access to Platform Security Processor, microcode, and System Management Interface — exploit for 15h and 16h chip families cracks open secret memory areas

In 2015, a security flaw in certain AMD CPUs was discovered, allowing attackers to gain full control of the affected hardware. This exploit, known as Skitter Creek Bath Salts (Skitter), was developed by hacker Christopher Domas. It affects AMD 15h and 16h family chips, which include desktop FX-series CPUs, Opterons, low-power Jaguar and Puma SoCs, and various Athlon, Sempron, and Opteron-X models.

To execute the exploit, an attacker needs kernel-level access, which grants them the ability to run their own drivers. Once they have this access, they can manipulate the system's memory mapping to gain unauthorized access to normally inaccessible areas, such as the Platform Security Processor (PSP), System Management Mode (SMM), microcode patch RAM, and more.

This exploit allows attackers to read and write to previously hidden memory areas, granting them extensive hardware-level control over the system.