CVE-2024-23984 is a medium-severity information disclosure vulnerability identified in certain Intel processors. The issue arises from observable discrepancies in the RAPL interface, which is designed to monitor and control processor power consumption. A privileged local attacker can leverage these discrepancies to infer sensitive information, potentially leaking data that should remain confidential. The vulnerability requires the attacker to have high privileges on the local system, such as administrative or root access, and does not require user interaction. The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:N/SA:N) indicates that the attack vector is local, with high attack complexity and privileges required, no user interaction, and high impact on confidentiality only. There is no impact on integrity or availability. No known exploits have been reported in the wild, and no patches have been linked yet, though Intel is likely to release updates. The vulnerability affects Intel processors that expose the RAPL interface, commonly found in modern server and workstation CPUs. Attackers exploiting this flaw could potentially extract sensitive data by analyzing power consumption patterns or related metrics exposed via RAPL, which may be used as a side channel. This could be particularly concerning in multi-tenant environments or systems handling sensitive workloads where privileged users might be compromised or malicious.

For European organizations, the primary impact is the potential leakage of sensitive information through side-channel analysis of the RAPL interface by privileged users. This could undermine confidentiality in environments where multiple users or processes share the same physical hardware, such as cloud providers, data centers, and enterprise servers. While the vulnerability does not affect system integrity or availability, the confidentiality breach could expose intellectual property, cryptographic keys, or other sensitive data. Organizations in sectors like finance, government, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, which rely heavily on Intel processors, could face increased risk if privileged accounts are compromised. The requirement for high privileges and local access limits the attack surface but does not eliminate risk, especially in environments with complex user roles or insider threats. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk but does not preclude future exploitation. The vulnerability also highlights the need for strict access controls and monitoring of privileged activities on affected systems.

1. Apply Intel's security updates and microcode patches promptly once available to address the RAPL interface discrepancy. 2. Restrict privileged user access to only those who absolutely require it, enforcing the principle of least privilege. 3. Monitor and audit usage of the RAPL interface and related power management tools to detect anomalous or unauthorized access patterns. 4. In virtualized or multi-tenant environments, isolate workloads and consider disabling or restricting RAPL interface exposure to guest systems where feasible. 5. Employ hardware-based security features and trusted execution environments to reduce the risk of privileged user compromise. 6. Educate system administrators and security teams about this vulnerability and the importance of controlling privileged access. 7. Use endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to identify suspicious local activities that could indicate exploitation attempts. 8. Review and harden system configurations to minimize unnecessary access to low-level hardware interfaces.