Meltdown Redux: Intel Flaw Lets Hackers Siphon Secrets from Millions of PCs
More than a year has passed since security researchers revealed Meltdown and Spectre, a pair of flaws in the deep-seated, arcane features of millions of chip sold by Intel and AMD, putting practically every computer in the world at risk. Today Intel and a coordinated supergroup of microarchitecture security researchers are together announcing a new, serious form of hackable vulnerability in Intel's chips. Like Meltdown and Spectre, the new MDS attack takes advantage of security flaws in how Intel chips perform speculative execution, a feature in which a processor guesses ahead of time at what operations and data it will be asked to execute, in order to speed up the chip's performance. Herbort Bos, VUSec In these new cases, researchers found that they could use speculative execution to trick Intel's processors into grabbing sensitive data that's moving from one component of a chip to another. Unlike Meltdown, which used speculative execution to grab sensitive data sitting in memory, MDS attacks focus on the buffers that sit between a chip's components, such as between a processor and its cache, the small portion of memory allotted to the processor to keep frequently accessed data close at hand.
How Meltdown and Spectre Were Independently Discovered By Four Research Teams At Once
Discover Related
Intel defeats shareholder lawsuit over foundry losses, $32 billion plunge
Cybercriminals are using AI to ramp up attacks on macOS in 2025
Intel’s grim lesson for Boeing: Sometimes Mr. Fix-It is too late
How North Korean hackers stole billions in crypto while posing as VCs, IT workers
Intel facing ‘most difficult period in its 56-year history’, exploring options
Microchip Technology says certain operations disrupted by cyber incident
PCs are spontaneously crashing because of Intel problem, company says
The Snowflake Attack May Be Turning Into One of the Largest Data Breaches Ever
‘I don’t know how this happened’: A $3B secret program undermining Biden’s tech policy
AI rise will lead to increase in cyberattacks | GCHQ warns
Intel Says Many PC Brands Using Its New AI-enabled Chip, Wants People To Upgrade PCs
ChatGPT Spit Out Sensitive Data When Told to Repeat ‘Poem’ Forever
Intel Let Google Cloud Hack Its New Secure Chips and Found 10 Bugs
Cybersecurity strategy proposes measures for data breaches
Intel expands developer cloud to enable customers to try out new chips
Destructive Hacks Against Ukraine Echo Its Last Cyberwar
EXPLAINER: The security flaw that’s freaked out the internet
EXPLAINER: The security flaw that’s freaked out the internet
Intel shows research for packing more computing power into chips beyond 2025