Cybersecurity Expert

A brand new processor hardware vulnerability affecting modern Intel CPUs has been uncovered by Bitdefender researchers  Coined "ZombieLoad side-channel processor", the vulnerability defeats the architectural safeguards of the processor and allows unprivileged user-mode applications to steal kernel-mode memory information processed on the affected computer. https://www.bitdefender.com/files/News/CaseStudies/study/257/Bitdefender-Whitepaper-YAM-en-EN.pdf A Concerning Impact on Cloud Services The new vulnerability can b e exploited by attackers to leak privileged information data from an area of the processor's memory meant to be strictly off-limits. This flaw could be used in highly targeted attacks that would normally require system-wide privileges or deep subversion of the operating system. The flaw has an extremely large impact on cloud service providers and within multi-tenant environments, as potentially a 'bad neighbour' could leverage this flaw to ...

2018 started with a big security alert bang after Google Security Researchers disclosed serious security vulnerabilities in just about every computer processor in use on the planet.  Named 'Meltdown' and 'Spectre ’, when exploited by a hacker or malware, these vulnerabilities disclose confidential data. As a result, a whole raft of critical security updates was hastily released for computer and smartphone operating systems, web browsers, and processor drivers. While processor manufacturers have been rather lethargic in reacting and producing  patches for the problem, software vendors such as Microsoft, Google and Apple have reacted quickly, releasing security updates to protect their customers from the vulnerable processors, kudos to them. The UK Information Commission's Office (ICO) heavily criticised the Carphone Warehouse for security inadequacies and fined the company £400K following their 2015 data breach , when the personal data, includin...

The New Year has started with a big security bang after new dangerous security vulnerabilities were discovered within Intel, AMD and ARM processors, placing just about every Server, PC, Cloud Service, IoT device, Smartphone and Tablet on the planet at risk.  Google Security Researchers, aka Project Zero, discovered the new computer processor flaws, which they have named ' Meltdown' and ' Spectre ' when  breaking the bad news on 3rd January 2018. Both Meltdown and Spectre allo w an attacker or malware to access privileged information from within what should be a protected area of ( kernel ) memory. Meaning the potential disclosure of passwords, encryption keys, and confidential data from within virtual environments i.e. where multiple virtual machines are hosted on a single hardware platform. Meltdown The Meltdown vulnerability is present on all Intel processors manufactured after 1995 and is the easiest of the two flaws to exploit. This vulnerability exploitati...