A new vulnerability was found in Intel CPU’s that could allow hackers to gain access to sensitive data in a computer’s memory
Accorind to a ZDNet report, the flaw, which Intel has called “L1 Terminal Fault” and researchers have grouped under the moniker “Foreshadow” are similar to both the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities that were uncovered earlier which is present in billions of Intel and AMD chips. AMD has stated that their products do not suffer the same vulnerability when it comes to foreshadow, so it would appear to be only Intel CPU’s that are affected.
Foreshadow could allow hackers to mount “side channel” attacks that could potentialy give them access to the portion of core memory that holds data like passwords and encryption keys. Computers that are running in the cloud and that handle large workloads for different clients could be at most risk to such attacks.
The researchers who found the vulnerability gave Intel a warning months ago to allow Intel time to prepare patches to minimize the risk of the new vulnerability. With both Spectre and Meltdown earlier, Intel scrambled to take action to correct the issues. Cloud vendors like Microsoft and Amazon have also started issuing notices about steps they have taken to try and minimize the threat that Foreshadow could pose to customers
