Pandora’s Box of Processor Vulnerabilities is Open – Now What?
Summary
Security researchers shook the industry to its core back in 2018 when they disclosed Meltdown and Spectre, two serious vulnerabilities found in virtually every computer processor. In his latest column for Dark Reading, WatchGuard’s senior security analyst, Marc Laliberte, explains how the processor speed race gave birth to attacks that abuse speculative execution processes, and ultimately why this issue is likely to cause industry leaders to develop separate lines of processors designed specifically to protect cloud applications from Meltdown, Spectre and the like. Here’s a brief excerpt from the article: “Since Meltdown and Spectre’s disclosure, researchers have found several variants and other vulnerabilities that abuse speculative execution to access restricted memory. This has led many desktop users, who are less impacted by Spectre, Meltdown, and the like, to disable the security options to retain more processing power. Because of these challenges, we’re likely heading towards a future where Intel and AMD manufacture different classes of processors that focus on either security or speed.” Read the complete article on Dark Reading for more insights on the perils of speculative execution vulnerabilities in the cloud and how the industry will likely adjust to meet demands for both performance and security.
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