![]() MasterKey, which allows the computer to be compromised during booting up giving attackers total control over what programs run during startup.However, the company claims that releasing the information to the vendor and users on day zero – without any technical details of how they operate – was “a better way”. In a highly unusual move, the discover of the new vulnerabilities, an Israeli computer security firm called CT-Labs, released the news less than 24 hours after the flaws were discovered. But whereas researchers were given 6 months to study the information about Meltdown and Spectre, with Google even convening a team of university researchers to release the details, the news about AMD came literally overnight. The AMD processors affected are the Ryzen line, used in desktop and laptop devices, and also EPYC chips in servers. Most of these flaws require administrative access to be used, which means that the computer will already have to have been successfully infected by malware to be reached by a hacker, but the potential for damage due to the place of power these flaws operate from is great. So even the fact that no exploits still have been found beyond those created as proof-of-concept tests is not that reassuring. It’s also the place where the computer checks to see if no malware is running, so any hack is likely to be undetectable. Like Meltdown and Spectre, these reside in the most secure area of the computer where encryption keys and passwords are stored. As Intel produces 77% of the world’s computer processors and AMD the other 22%, this means basically that virtually all computers in the world, especially older ones, are now at risk. ![]() ![]() Meltdown and Spectre are critical security flaws in Intel chips, but recently 18 or so similar problems have been found in AMD chips. ![]()
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