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Linux lite meltdown spectre9/19/2023 Spectre and Meltdown are representative examples of “transient execution” attacks, which rely on hardware design flaws in the implementation of speculative execution, instruction pipelining, and out-of-order execution in modern CPUs. By leveraging the duo, it is possible to read protected system memory, gaining access to passwords, encryption keys, and other sensitive information. Spectre and Meltdown are uniquely dangerous security vulnerabilities that allow malicious actors to bypass system security protections present in nearly every recent device with a CPU-not just PCs, servers, and smartphones, but also Internet of Things (IoT) devices like routers and smart TVs. Spectre and Meltdown are not singular flaws–they individually represent a class of closely-related variants. Meltdown is a vulnerability allowing a process to read all memory in a given system. In the most basic definition, Spectre is a vulnerability allowing for arbitrary locations in the allocated memory of a program to be read. That document serves as further analysis of the original papers in which Meltdown and Spectre were presented. Note: TechRepublic’s cheat sheet to Spectre and Meltdown utilizes the stratification of variants, definitions, and explanations from “ A Systematic Evaluation of Transient Execution Attacks and Defenses,” by Claudio Canella, Daniel Gruss, Moritz Lipp, Philipp Ortner, Michael Schwarz, and Benjamin von Berg of Graz University of Technology Frank Piessens and Jo Van Bulck of KU Leuven and Dmitry Evtyushkin of The College of William and Mary. SEE: All of TechRepublic’s cheat sheets and smart person’s guides TechRepublic’s cheat sheet for Spectre and Meltdown is as a comprehensive guide to understanding how the vulnerabilities work, as well as a resource for the most up-to-date patching and mitigation information. Initially, AMD processors were thought to be immune to Meltdown, though one variant has been successfully demonstrated on AMD systems. Presently, 13 Spectre variants and 14 Meltdown variants have been identified. Understanding of Spectre and Meltdown has increased significantly since the initial disclosure, and security researchers continue to study these vulnerabilities. While these are fundamentally hardware design flaws, attempts to remediate on a software level have seen some success. Arm) make some processors vulnerable to more variants than others. Differences between manufacturers (e.g., Intel vs. Spectre and Meltdown individually represent classes of hardware vulnerabilities, each with a number of variants dependent on specific silicon-level functionality. In January 2018, the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed, prompting widespread concern among security professionals as the duo can be used to steal data from nearly any computer, as well as iPhones and iPads and other mobile devices.
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