There has been plenty of (digital) ink spilled in recent days about widespread processor flaws known as “Meltdown” and “Spectre.” We round up five articles that will help you understand these security vulnerabilities, how they were discovered and their likely impact.
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Google details CPU flaws, claims AMD, ARM and Intel all affected
Google has come forward to claim responsibility for discovering a pair of serious security holes in Intel processors that run almost 9 in 10 computers in the world. And worse: the company has echoed a statement by Intel yesterday that the flaws are not specific to that company’s chips. Contrary to published reports, a blog post on the Google Security Blog by Matt Linton, a Senior Security Engineer at Google and Pat Parseghian, a Technical Program Manager said that flaws dubbed “Specter” (PDF) and “Meltdown” (PDF) are not limited to chips by Intel, but exist in central processing unit (CPU) chips by a wide range of vendors including Intel, AMD and ARM. Google discovered the flaws The flaws were discovered by Jann Horn, a researcher for Google’s Project Zero security team, discovered the flaw and showed how malicious actors could game a common CPU feature known as “speculative execution” to […]
DNS-Linked Flaw Leaves Many Systems Vulnerable
In-brief: Researchers at Google are warning about a previously undetected flaw in a widely used open source library could be exploited by attacks using overly long web domain names.
Linux Kernel Flaw Reaches Into Internet of Things
In-brief: Software updates were released to address a serious and exploitable security flaw in the Linux kernel on Tuesday. The issue, in a feature called keyring, could impact embedded systems as well as mobile devices.
