CVE-2024-39355 is a vulnerability identified in certain Intel processors related to improper handling of physical or environmental conditions. This flaw allows an authenticated user with local access to trigger a denial of service condition, potentially causing the processor or system to become unresponsive or crash. The vulnerability does not require user interaction beyond authentication and local presence, making it a risk primarily in environments where multiple users have local access or where attackers can gain such access through other means. The CVSS 4.0 vector indicates that the attack vector is local (AV:L), with low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring privileges (PR:L), and no user interaction (UI:N). The impact is limited to availability (VA:H), with no confidentiality or integrity impact. The vulnerability is not known to be exploited in the wild yet, and no patches or mitigations have been explicitly linked in the provided data. Intel processors are widely used in enterprise and industrial systems, so this vulnerability could affect a broad range of devices. The issue stems from how the processor handles certain physical or environmental conditions, which could be manipulated to cause system instability or crashes. This vulnerability highlights the importance of controlling local access and monitoring system health to prevent denial of service scenarios.

For European organizations, the primary impact is operational disruption due to denial of service conditions on affected Intel processors. This can lead to system downtime, impacting business continuity, especially in critical sectors such as finance, manufacturing, healthcare, and government services. Since the vulnerability requires local authenticated access, the risk is higher in environments with shared workstations, data centers with multiple administrators, or where attackers can escalate privileges locally. The lack of confidentiality or integrity impact reduces the risk of data breaches, but availability loss can still cause significant financial and reputational damage. Industrial control systems and critical infrastructure relying on Intel processors could experience interruptions, potentially affecting public services and safety. The absence of known exploits in the wild provides some time for organizations to prepare and implement mitigations. However, the medium severity score indicates that while not critical, the vulnerability should not be ignored, especially in high-availability environments.

1. Limit and strictly control local access to systems with affected Intel processors, ensuring only trusted and authorized personnel have physical or remote local access. 2. Monitor system logs and hardware health indicators for signs of instability or unusual behavior that could indicate exploitation attempts. 3. Implement robust privilege management to minimize the number of users with local authenticated access. 4. Stay informed on Intel’s security advisories and promptly apply firmware or microcode updates once available to address this vulnerability. 5. Consider deploying endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions that can detect anomalous local activity potentially related to exploitation attempts. 6. For critical systems, evaluate the feasibility of hardware replacement or segmentation to isolate vulnerable processors until patches are applied. 7. Conduct regular security audits focusing on local access controls and physical security to reduce the attack surface. 8. Educate IT staff about the risks of local privilege abuse and the importance of monitoring and reporting unusual system behavior.