BOHH Breakdown Part 18: Highlighting the Good and Bad of the Intel Security Flaw

In our last post, we shared tips for kicking your security strategy off right in 2018. Today, we will take a deeper look at the recent Intel chip security flaw news that shocked the world and highlight the good and bad to come out of it.

When it came out that Intel chips were exposed to security flaws and the vulnerabilities affect almost all the microprocessor chips manufactured by Intel, it immediately put fear in to pretty much everyone who owns a computer or cell phone. In fact, according to the industry consultancy IDC, the Intel chips back 98 percent of data center operations The two flaws are called Meltdown and Spectre and could potentially allow hackers access to all the memory contents of computers, mobile phones, and servers.

While the flaw discoveries highlight some of the issues with security, there is also a silver lining. Below we highlight several of the good and bad points to come out of this.

Since everyone likes good news before the bad, we will start with the good:

1. This news has prompted users to make sure they update their systems with the new patches and updates.  Additionally, in order to protect themselves from the chip flaws, many security experts have recommended that users go in to their settings and install security updates automatically – this will ensure their systems stay up to date as possible as manufacturers release system updates. This is a great start in getting every day users more invested in security and show them how the much talked about cybersecurity industry can affect them personally.
2. One of the two flaws, Meltdown, can be addressed with software updates, which many of the major manufactures including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, jumped on top of getting a patch out for their systems quickly to protect against the Meltdown vulnerability. It is a positive too see these top companies make the fix a priority.
3. So far, there has not been any evidence that hackers have been able to capitalize on these flaws. This means, this is just a good warning for better security preparation.

Unfortunately, with the good always comes the bad:

1. The flaws were discovered by independent researchers. While it is great the flaws were discovered, it does bring to question why Intel was not more on top of it.
2. One of the flaws, Spectre, is not an easy fix. Unlike the Meltdown flaw which is a software fix, Spectre is a hardware fix that could mean the need to redesign the processor itself some researchers suggest. This means it is not an easy fix.
3. The sheer size of the potential danger these flawed microprocessor chips could inflict across the world globally needs to be taken very seriously. This highlights our reliance on technology and assumption that they are built securely from the foundation, and how just one flaw exploited by a hacker could impact the entire world.

The ramifications of how these bugs will impact computing the industry is still yet to be fully determined, but in the meantime, it’s important to look what we can learn from it. Come back next Tuesday when we take a closer look AI and how it can enhance the cybersecurity industry.