Weird Security Flaw Affected Intel Chips for 16 Years
Better read this if you bought your computer before 2011
At the BlackHat conference in Las Vegas, Battelle security researcher Christopher Domas revealed a hidden security flaw that affected Intel processors for 16 years. The first flawed chips appeared in 1995, and the problem wasn't fixed until the 2011 crop of new processors that included the Sandy Bridge series.
The strange problem occurs at such a deep level of the hardware architecture that it is unstoppable and undetectable by the operating system. Intel processors have a privilege ring architecture that defines the level of privilege available to a process. As most developers and power users know, the kernel occupies Ring 0, usermode applications live at Ring 3, and device drivers fall somewhere in between. Far lesser known are the mysterious rings inside of Ring 0. Ring -1 is the hypervisor ring, which manages the operating systems running at Ring 0, and below that, the murky Ring -2 is home to Intel's System Management Mode software. This innermost ring is loaded by the system firmware, and it is effectively untouched by the rest of the system. The bug that affected Intel processors for 16 years allows privilege escalation code to run at Ring -2, where it was invisible to the rest of the system.
Users with older PCs should watch for more news on this problem, but it doesn't look like a quick fix will appear anytime soon, and now that the flaw has been published in the press, it is only a matter of time before intruders exploit it. Linux users better not bet on that natural security of Linux systems to get you through this one: The operating system is just another app when you're down in Ring -2.
Issue 210/2018
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 Released
The latest release is focused on hybrid cloud.
-
Microsoft Releases a Linux-Based OS
The company is building a new IoT environment powered by Linux.
-
Solomon Hykes Leaves Docker
In a surprise move, Solomon Hykes, the creator of Docker has left the company.
-
Red Hat Celebrates 25th Anniversary with a New Code Portal
The company announces a GitHub page with links to source code for all its projects
-
Gnome 3.28 Released
The latest GNOME rolls out with better contact management and new features for handling virtual machines.
-
Install Firefox in a Snap on Linux
Mozilla has picked the Snap package system to deliver its application to Linux users.
-
OpenStack Queens Released
The new release comes with new features for mission critical workloads.
-
Kali Linux Comes to Windows
The Kali Linux developers even managed to run full blown XFCE desktop via WSL.
-
Ubuntu to Start Collecting Some Data with Ubuntu 18.04
It will be an ‘opt-out’ feature.
-
CNCF Illuminates Serverless Vision
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation announces a paper describing their model for a serverless ecosystem.