How to protect yourself from the bugs of the processors

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The revelations about the security loopholes discovered in CPUs and laptops, as well as the ARM’s SoC on smartphones, tablets and game consoles, dare to say that they are probably the poorest point in the history of information technology. Not the revelations themselves, of course, but the oversights and omissions of company engineers.

The two main vulnerabilities discovered, called “Meltdown” and “Spectre” and starting from Intel’s desktop processors, proved that even affect our mobile phones, up to enterprise systems and cloud services.

According to Google’s Project Zero Electronic Security Team -which had alerted those involved for months about the problems, and then other malware researchers- attackers can exploit the vulnerabilities to extract sensitive data from computational devices of all kinds, which have the problematic processors installed. 

The first security patches are already available, initially for Linux, while Google made available updates for Android products. Also, the first updates were released by Microsoft for Windows 10 with emergency security updates. We also expect the relevant updates for Firefox and Chrome. Apple is reported to have already released a partial fix on MacOS 10.13.2 and is expected to have the complete package of fixes with version 10.13.3.

As for the dramatic performance decreases expected after bug fixes, the first measurements made and released by guru3d after Windows 10 security patches do not verify those predicting rates of 15-30%.

Let’s see one by one the points of attention with regard to updates:

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Windows:

Microsoft has released a first security update for Windows 10, that will be automatically updated. Make sure your computer is up to date by going to Settings and checking Updates. Updates for the other Windows versions are expected to be completed in the next few days.

Fully shielding your computer requires firmware or BIOS update, so do not ignore notifications of relevant updates that you can accept or check for yourself through the relevant manufacturers applications, such as the “Lenovo Solution Center” and “Dell Update” for Lenovo and Dell computers respectively.

©Provided by: capital.gr Most mobile users are not concerned about the security of their data

Android:

The 2018-01-05 security patch for Android is available as the first step in patching the processor security holes. Google’s Pixel smartphones will automatically receive it, and it is expected that the other manufacturers will update their devices. Do not forget to check for bug fixes and to update your mobile and tablet.

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MacOS and iOS:

Unlike in the case of Windows, computers running MacOS will probably only receive one update containing software and firmware fixes, since Apple has the absolute control over its devices. So far, however, there is no indication of when this update will come out. The update for iOS is expected.

Web Browsers:

Google, Microsoft and Mozilla Firefox are working on relevant bug fixes. Edge was updated with the Windows 10 urgent security patch, while version 57.0.4 with fixes for the problem is already available for Firefox.

Source: www.capital.gr

Editor’s Note: Links are provided for access to more detailed information.