Meltdown patches from Microsoft made Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 less secure

If you're running Windows 7 and you've not yet installed the March updates, now is very much the time to do so. It turns out that the Meltdown patches released in January and February actually opened up a security hole in both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. A Swedish security researcher found that the patches changed access permissions for kernel memory, making it possible for anyone to read from and write to user processes, gain admin rights and modify data in memory. See also: Intel failed to warn US government about Meltdown and Spectre flaws before going public… [Continue Reading]