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The Spectre and Meltdown Chip Security: How Bad is it?
Insecure software is usually the root of security vulnerabilities, but last week two serious hardware vulnerabilities were announced: Spectre and Meltdown.
What is Spectre?
Spectre is a computer chip flaw that can allow hackers to steal information from otherwise error-free applications. Many types of computing devices are affected: laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and even cloud computing systems.
The Meltdown and Spectre FAQ says that Spectre “is not easy to fix, it will haunt us for quite some time.”
What is MeltDown?
Meltdown is a computer chip flaw that allows direct access to data stored in a computer’s core memory. Any software that runs on the computer could gain access to the information. Daniel Gruss, researcher at Graz University of Technology, said that Meltdown is “probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found.” The flaw dates back to Intel chips manufactured as early as 1995.
Analysts suggest that computers. especially those running high-value applications like bitcoin servers, may be targeted by hackers seeking to exploit the Meltdown vulnerability.
Matt Carr, security consultant, told the Telegraph that “the most obvious use of Spectre and Meltdown is to dump cryptocurrency private keys and steal wallet passwords without having to send out ransomware, thus gaining instant profit. I think we will see people exploiting this to steal Bitcoins.”
Dmitri Alperovitch, CTO of CrowdStrike, said that “the reality is it’s going to take years before new chips are on the market that are able to bring back the functionality in a safe way.”
