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Microsoft Pluton is a new processor with Xbox-like security for Windows PCs
Microsoft is creating a new security chip that's designed to protect future Windows PCs. Microsoft Pluton is a security processor that is built directly into future CPUs and will replace the existing Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a chip that's currently used to secure hardware and cryptographic keys. Pluton is based on the same security technologies used to protect Xbox consoles, and Microsoft is working with Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm to combine it into future CPUs.
[...] Just like you can't easily hack into an Xbox One to run pirated games, the hope is that it will be a lot more difficult to physically hack into a Windows PC in the future by integrating Pluton into the CPU.
Windows 10: Microsoft reveals Pluton security chip – 'Expect Patch Tuesday-type updates'
Microsoft promises Pluton will make it easier to keep system firmware up to date, for example, in cases when TPM firmware for separate security processors is required.
In Intel's case, the Pluton processor will ship with future chips but will be isolated from their cores. However, at present there's no precise timeline for the appearance of the first Intel chips containing the Pluton security processor.
Pluton will be integrated with the Windows Update process on Windows 10 PCs, according to Microsoft. The chip is an up-dateable platform for running firmware that implements end-to-end security that is authored, maintained, and updated by Microsoft.
The firmware updates will follow the same process that the Azure Sphere Security Service uses to connect to IoT devices.
"Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs": AMD, Intel, Qualcomm
What the Pluton project from Microsoft and the agreement between AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm will do is build a TPM-equivalent directly into the silicon of every Windows-based PC of the future. The Pluton architecture will, initially, build an emulated TPM to work with existing specifications for access to the current suites of security protocols in place. Because Pluton will be in-silicon, it severely reduces the physical attack surface of any Pluton-enabled device.
Also at TechCrunch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday November 30 2020, @07:19PM (4 children)
What do we think the odds are that Linux (especially a compiled-from-source kernel), BSD, or any other operating system can be run on these machines without violating patents or copyrights or something like that? Because it current seems an awful lot like UEFI "secure" boot all over again.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 30 2020, @08:45PM (2 children)
UEFI "secure" boot didn't work. Some how those Linux ruffians still found a way to run on it anyway.
Microsoft Pluton will finally put an end to all this open source nonsense. "Kill it at the source" - Microsoft
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 01 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)
They should call it Microsoft Uranus...n instead.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 01 2020, @11:32AM
Perhaps they were going for PlutonAsh, once it flops and the remains are righteously incinerated?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday November 30 2020, @09:04PM
I dunno, it's pretty complex. Remember MS has been doing a lot with and in Linux / GNU stuff.
And, IBM owns Red Hat, so someone will produce motherboards and CPUs that will run Red Hat, at least. Or we just keep our old bootable systems running until someone hacks around it, or someone else produces non-Pluton hardware.
Hopefully the CPU manufacturers will produce both- with and without Pluton. But knowing MS, they'll try to rope everyone into an all-or-nothing agreement. "You must include Pluton in all of your CPUs or we will not "certify" your CPU for Windows."