Category: Security Issues

Meltdown and Specter are recent CPU (hardware) bug discoveries that use a critical design flaw in CPUs to easily obtain the information from an off-limits memory location. In other words, researchers have found a way to trick the CPU into giving up information held elsewhere in memory, even if that memory is off-limits to the original program reading it. Triggering the bug requires very little code and can be as simple as the victim reading a web page that contains the appropriate Javascript. However, finding useful information inside the system and sending that information back home is more complex and may require additional steps from a threat actor. As can be seen in this demo from Michael Schwarz, the bug can cause passwords and other information...