 Academics have discovered a new class of vulnerabilities in Intel processors that can allow attackers to retrieve data being processed inside a CPU. The leading attack in this new vulnerability class is a security flaw named Zombieload, which is another side-channel attack in the same category as Meltdown, Spectre, and Foreshadow just like the first three, Zombieload is exploited by taking advantage of the speculative execution process, which is an optimization technique that Intel added to its CPUs to improve data processing speeds and performance. For more than a year, academics have been poking holes in various components of the speculative execution process, revealing ways to leak data from various CPU buffer zones and data processing operations. Meltdown, Spectre, and Foreshadow have shown how various CPU components leak data during the speculative execution process. Today, an international team of academics -- including some of the people involved in the original Meltdown and Spectre research -- along with security researchers from Bitdefender have disclosed a new attack impacting the speculative execution process. This one is what researchers have named a Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) attack, and targets a CPU's microarchitectural data structures, such as the load, store, and line fill buffers, which the CPU uses for fast reads/writes of data being processed inside the CPU. These are smaller-sized caches that are used alongside the main CPU cache. By exploiting normal speculative execution operations that work within these microarchitectural structures, an MDS attack can infer data that is being processed in the CPU by other apps, to which an attacker shouldn't normally have access to. Complete details are posted on OUR FORUM.  Microsoft is expected to begin rolling out Windows 10 May 2019 Update to compatible devices in a week or two. To prepare their devices for Microsoft’s new update, GPU and CPU manufacturers are rolling out new compatible drivers. After Intel and Nvidia, AMD has now also released new graphics drivers that add support for Windows 10 May 2019 Update. AMD Radeon 19.5.1 driver is what you should install if you’re planning to upgrade your AMD PC to Windows 10 version 1903. In the release notes, AMD says Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition also adds support for RAGE 2 and instruction tracing for Radeon GPU Profiler 1.5.X. The update also includes tons of bug fixes and improvements. A bug where the performance metrics overlay may experience intermittent flicker has been addressed. This problem was experienced when the user played protected content with this feature enabled. AMD is also addressing a bug that causes DOOM to hang during launch on AMD XConnect Technology system configurations. Another bug has been addressed where the Radeon software installation doesn’t work or get stuck at 33% if you install it on AMD Radeon HD 7970 system configurations. Radeon RX Vega series graphics products may experience higher than expected memory clocks at idle or desktop with multi-display system configurations. Stuttering or frame drop issues where playing DivX interlaced content in the Movies & TV app has been also fixed. The update also addresses the intermittent authentication issues and an update of the AMD Link application is also required. Read more by visiting OUR FORUM.  American technology giant Microsoft Corporation will set up a development center in Kenya. Speaking at a meeting hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi, on Monday, the firm’s top executives led by Vice President for Gaming Phil Spencer said the Africa Development Centre will serve the East African region. The technology center, the seventh globally, will not only be Microsoft’s gateway to the region but will carry huge potential for jobs and business opportunities for tech-savvy Kenyan youth. Mr. Spencer said the firm will absorb 100 local engineers. President Kenyatta welcomed the initiative and assured Microsoft of his full support. “You can count on my 100 percent support. I want this to be a transparent partnership that benefits Microsoft and Kenyans. We want you to make Kenya your African home," President Kenyatta said. The President said Kenya is the best place to host the new development site. “You will not find another country with the same capacity as Kenya," he said. According to Microsoft, the Africa Development Centre will be a premier hub of engineering for the US technology company and its affiliates. The center will leverage the diversity of the regional landscape to build world-class talent capable of creating innovative solutions for global impact. Further, the center is expected to establish a collaborative engineering springboard for new technology investments in Kenya. Besides Nairobi, Microsoft has earmarked Nigeria as the other beneficiary of a similar facility on the continent to serve West Africa. He said the new development sites carry great potential for job creation, talent development, and technology transfer among Africa's youth especially in countries with good ICT literacy ratings such as Kenya. President Kenyatta said the new initiatives by Microsoft is in line with the government’s Big 4 development agenda. The Head of State called for openness in the partnership and challenged Microsoft to ensure intellectual property rights of Kenyans involved in their projects are adequately protected. Further details can be found on OUR FORUM. |
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