Experts on processor security, including one referred to paper of Meltdown, allegedly disagree on whether the resolution of the Specter vulnerability requires hardware modifications or whether software updates can resolve the issue.
Meltdown's vulnerability could be the focus of future malware attacking processor operations even in hibernated systems, according to experts.
"The Specter and Meltdown theory is difficult to understand," said Anders Fogh, a security researcher at G-Data and an expert in processor security. "If it was used in the past, it would only be in advanced attacks. But now that the research has been released, it is very likely that we will see Meltdown-based malware attacks relatively quickly. ”
Meltdown - like Specter - is a flaw that allows information to be disclosed, but by itself is not suitable for some remote code execution. So the researchers' concern is about future combined attacks with other malware, which will aim to intercept passwords and cryptographic credentials from unpatched systems.
Meltdown exploit can be done easily, but it is also relatively easy to repair, while in Specter, things are difficult from all opinions. Daniel Genkin, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland, told the Register, which revealed the vulnerabilities, that an ongoing repair of Specter would require a redesign of the hardware.
Anders Fogh of G-Data disputed Genkin's view, telling the Register that the patches already released increase the difficulty of such a attacks.
"Withdrawal of processors is not possible anyway," he said. "The next step is to convince our customers to install the patches."
With Fogh's logic, however, those who have the necessary knowledge (see intelligence services) could find out how to exploit the vulnerability.
On the other hand, Werner Haas, representative of Cyberus Technology and a member of one of the three independent teams that discovered and reported on Meltdown, said that achieving comprehensive protection against Specter is very simple and will likely involve an "ongoing process" of software fixes and hardware modifications.
"The Specter scenario is not that simple, as cross-application attacks are unlikely without even OS participation," said Haas.
"Therefore, a general solution like Meltdown seems unlikely. Therefore, I expect combined repairs to hardware / software defects along with the warning that the fight against Spectre will be an ongoing process. "
Here, let us mention that immediately after the announcement of the vulnerabilities CERT announced that the only way to repair Meltdown and Spectre was to replace the CPU.
"The underlying vulnerability is primarily caused by CPU architecture design choices," they wrote researchers of CERT. "Full removal of the vulnerability requires replacing the vulnerable CPU."
A little later, and without knowing who was playing under the table, CERT recalled, and an Intel representative Agnes Kwan said: "CERT updated the vulnerability note to correct some inaccuracies."
Of course, we wouldn't expect Intel to say otherwise, since admitting the CERT report would cause major upheaval in the company, with the corresponding financial cost.
