Researchers develop SafeSpec to overcome vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown

Computer scientists from the University of California, the College of William and Mary, and Binghamton University have published a paper detailing a new "design principle" that avoids speculative execution vulnerabilities. Researchers says that the SafeSpec model supports "speculation in a way that is immune to the sidechannel leakage necessary for attacks such as Meltdown and Spectre". Importantly, the design also avoids the problems associated with other Meltdown/Spectre fixes. See also: CVE-2018-3665: Floating Point Lazy State Save/Restore vulnerability affects Intel chips Spectre and Meltdown variant 4: Microsoft, Google and Intel reveal new Speculative Store Bypass chip vulnerability Intel: some processors will… [Continue Reading]