On 4 January 2018 at 17:55, The Wanderer <wande...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On 2018-01-04 at 12:30, Michael Fothergill wrote: > > > On 4 January 2018 at 17:22, Curt <cu...@free.fr> wrote: > > > >> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/meltdown-and- > spectre-every-modern- > >> processor-has-unfixable-security-fladdws/U > >> > >> > >> TL;DR > >> > >> Windows, Linux, and macOS have all received security patches that > >> significantly alter how the operating systems handle virtual memory in > >> order to protect against a hitherto undisclosed flaw. > >> ... > >> In the immediate term, it looks like most systems will shortly have > >> patches for Meltdown. At least for Linux and Windows, these patches > >> allow end-users to opt out if they would prefer. The most vulnerable > >> users are probably cloud service providers; Meltdown and Spectre can > >> both in principle be used to further attacks against hypervisors, > >> making it easier for malicious users to break out of their virtual > >> machines. > >> ... > >> For typical desktop users, the risk is arguably less significant. While > >> both Meltdown and Spectre can have value in expanding the scope of an > >> existing flaw, neither one is sufficient on its own to, for example, > >> break out of a Web browser. > >> > >> Apparent moral of story for CPU: don't speculate (but it's significantly > >> *slower*). > > > > Isn't this mainly an Intel problem? I use AMD chipsets. I would go for > > Ryzen nowadays anyway. > > Meltdown so far is not known to affect anything other than Intel. > > Spectre, however, is confirmed to affect AMD CPUs - and Ryzen CPUs are > specifically stated to be affected. > But if the spectre vulnerability is hard exploit in practice and even in artificial test situations devised e.g. in the world of Linus Torvalds then AMD could turn out to be relatively cyber-kosher in the end. MF > > -- > The Wanderer > > The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one > persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all > progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw > >
