Researchers find processor redesign won't prevent new threats similar to Meltdown and Specter

One of the news items of 2017 and probably one of the most important of 2018 is the one referring to the existence of Meltdoww and Spectre, two vulnerabilities that seriously threaten security of millions of devices around the world and we're not just talking about computers.

It seemed that with the released patches and the redesign of the processors they had eliminated the problem, something that may not be the case. Perhaps we are just at the beginning of a much bigger problem, or that is what one might think if we look at the conclusions reached by researchers from Princeton University who have discovered a new way to exploit known vulnerabilities

A fact that could indicate that the redesign of the processors that the developer companies are working on might not be enough to root out the problem. These are the conclusions reached after publishing a study called MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime: Automatically-Synthesized Attacks Exploiting Invalidation-Based Coherence Protocols

The vulnerabilities affect areas of the processor architectures that are difficult to modify by design.

A study in which Princeton University has collaborated with Nvidia in which they speak of variants of Meltdown and Specter that could attack a new designwhich would therefore continue to present significant security breaches.

Apparently the redesigns that the affected manufacturers are carrying out for the new processors will not be enough.The reason is that the vulnerabilities affect areas of the processor architectures that are difficult to design

This discovery raises the question of whether with this new data on the table a major change in processor design should be explored than is currently being carried out in order to prevent a similar situation from recurring in the future.

And it is that security patches or the improvement in the rewards offered for those who discover vulnerabilities are of little use if they are going to continue to be present due to a basic design error that they have not wanted or been able to correct .

"Source | The Register In Xataka | Intel is already working on processors immune to Meltdown and Specter, and they will arrive throughout this year In Xataka | AMD prepares its optional patch to protect its Specter CPUs"