After the security holes “Specter” and “Meltdown” security experts have discovered a new gap in Intel processors. Affected this time are only Windows machines.
The problems with security gaps in processors from Intel seem far from over. The IT security firm Bitdefender published another vulnerability to the industry conference Black Hat, which can now be closed with updates, including from Microsoft.
Bitdefender’s Bogdan Botezatu said the attack path discovered by Bitdefender circumvents all previous protection mechanisms that were used in the spring of 2018 after the weaknesses in chip design. It is to be feared that in the future still further similar security problems will emerge, he warned.
The prediction process is to blame
The new vulnerability affected all computers with newer Intel processors running the Windows operating system. The crux of the problem is the same as the ” Specter ” and “Meltdown” attack scenarios that became known at the beginning of 2018, namely a mechanism in the processor that tries to predict the next commands.
The aim of the “speculative execution” technology, which has been used for several years now, was to make the processor faster. However, the method leaves traces in the internal memory of the chips, which allow attacks. As a result, attackers can tap into sensitive information, among other things. Read more about “Specter” and “Meltdown” here.
The threat was largely contained with software updates in the spring of 2018. However, the new attack path discovered by Bitdefender still worked in conjunction with a specific command from the Windows system. Attackers aware of the vulnerability could use it to steal “the most important and best-protected data from businesses and home users,” warns Bitdefender.