Intel is taking a new tack with the latest commercial PC chips announced last month: Instead of touting speed and performance, the company emphasized the chip’s security features. The chip giant has been working with security vendors in recent years to implement hardware-level protections on the chips to protect laptops from ransomware and malware attacks….

The security hole, tracked as CVE-2021-0146 and rated high severity, impacts Pentium, Celeron and Atom CPUs on mobile, desktop and embedded devices. Affected Atom IoT processors are present in many cars, apparently including ones made by Tesla. Intel announced the availability of fixes when it released its November 2021 Patch Tuesday updates. “Hardware allows activation…

Intel Patches Security Flaws in Processor Diagnostic Tool

The Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool (IPDT) is a piece of software designed to verify the functionality of an Intel processor. It can check for brand identification and operating frequency, test specific features, and perform a stress test on the processor. The recently addressed vulnerabilities (two of which are tracked as CVE-2018-3667 and CVE-2018-3668) were found…

Over 30 Lawsuits Filed Against Intel for CPU Flaws

More than 30 lawsuits have been filed by Intel customers and shareholders against the chip giant following the disclosure of the Meltdown and Spectre attack methods. Three class action lawsuits were filed against Intel within a week of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws being disclosed, but the number had reached 32 by February 15, according to an annual…

Intel offers to pay for Spectre-like side channel vulnerabilities

Intel is expanding the bug bounty program it started last March, and is raising considerably the awards it plans to give out for helpful vulnerability information. Where information about critical vulnerabilities in Intel software, firmware and hardware could have previously been rewarded with up to $7,500, $10,000 and $30,000, respectively, now the bounties in those same categories…

7 steps security leaders can take to deal with Spectre and Meltdown

Security and risk management leaders must take a pragmatic and risk-based approach to the ongoing threats posed by an entirely new class of vulnerabilities, according to Gartner. Spectre and Meltdown are the code names given to different strains of a new class of attacks that target an underlying exploitable design implementation inside the majority of computer…

World Password Day: Make the Internet a more secure place

Identity theft is one of the world’s fastest growing crimes, but adding strong authentication to your password can prevent it. Today is World Password Day, and here are some of the comments Help Net Security received from the infosec community. This year’s World Password Day is particularly pertinent as it marks almost a year to…