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Intel left a fascinating security flaw in its chips for 16 years
El Reg published an article about a security flaw introduced by Intel starting with its Pentium Pro line of processors--and left in place for fifteen years, fixing it only in 201--and also comes with instructions on how to exploit it. So, if you have any pre-2011 processor running some important machine, perhaps you should be thinking of an upgrade after you finish reading the article.
From the article:
It allows smart hackers to run rootkit code at the very lowest level on the computer, out of reach of the operating system, its applications, and even the hypervisor. This means the rootkit can, among other things, silently monitor and record the user's every keypress, mouse click, and download.
Efforts to detect the rootkit and eradicate it from a computer can be blocked, or hampered, by the malware itself. A nightmare, in other words.
The good news is that Intel spotted the howler in its processor blueprints, and corrected the issue: chips built from January 2011 and onwards (Sandy Bridge Core CPUs and later) are not affected. Also, operating systems can mitigate against the security hole at the hypervisor level, thus protecting themselves from miscreants exploiting the design flaw...
This kind of thing makes me want to go back to using a pocket calculator.
