Meltdown and Specter: They will happen again… and again

Meltdown and Specter: The recent gaps in multi-processor architecture built over the past two decades are the latest security breach that has hit the IT industry.

The phenomenon Meltdown and Specter came once again to confirm what many know but find it hard to admit: no one should think of their system as . It is much more valid to recognize a system as "stable" and of course as potentially insecure. Meltdown

This means thinking about security as a continuous process and not as an end point.

The flaws and Meltdown have been present in most Intel CPUs since 1995, and other chip manufacturers are also affected.

To many it may seem inconceivable that such serious vulnerabilities remain without updates for so many years (the joy of the NSA). However it is simply a function of the incredible complexity of the systems we all use. A long time ago, there was another one: Remember Heartbleed? The gap in the cryptographic book which launched with its own logo and caused panic in IT worldwide. Remember Shellshock? WannaCry ransomware?

Security is a utopia and believing that your systems are absolutely safe you are living a very dangerous illusion. Just suppose your systems are precarious, and you'll start making better decisions.

Security has ceased to exist with the advent of the internet, but many of us do not seem to have realized it. Specter and Meltdown are two good examples because they can affect everything from the PC in your office and the smartphone you have in your pocket to the cloud service you use to store your data. No matter how good you are at “security,” today you rely on the constellation of service providers and their various partners.

Any software, operating system, or firmware code shipped by vendors is inevitably imperfect, so there will always be updates. Applying these fixes is considered a tedious and thankless job by many IT people. Especially in corporate environments, where each update should be vetted by IT to make sure it won't cause problems when implemented. So many times updates are not the first priority, although they should be. The WannaCry ransomware was released last year, although the a patch had been released.

Of course this is what hackers know. Updates exist, but there are also systems that are not up to date.

So, what is security?

If you assume there is no security, you will have a greater chance of getting online and going safely. The aim of the article is to be suspicious.

There are no companies that can protect you, and if they promise they lie. Security means knowing that it does not exist, which prepares you for the worst scenarios.

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Written by giorgos

George still wonders what he's doing here ...

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