The IT world needs an open alternative to x86 architecture

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IncreaseThe new system-forming processor architecture must be an open system without the baggage of past vulnerabilities
The new system-forming processor architecture must be an open system without the baggage of past vulnerabilities
The recent events with the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities have shown how fragile the foundation on which the modern IT world is built is. The widely publicized flaws in the architecture of processors have caused panic among not only ordinary consumers, but also corporations that would seem to pay much more attention to security issues. The reason for this situation is that not only x86 processors from Intel and AMD were at risk, but also chips licensed using ARM technology. As Jason Perlow from ZDNet writes, because Spectre and Meltdown are not just software vulnerabilities, but hardware ones, they can be called some of the worst, if not the worst, in the history of computing.

What makes Spectre and Meltdown unique is that they are nigeria whatsapp data to have been around since Windows 3.1 came out in 1995, and are fundamental flaws in processor architecture. In other words, they are present in billions of processors around the world, in everything from consumer machines to high-performance systems and supercomputers that run nuclear reactors and intercontinental missiles.

Thanks to Meltdown and Spectre, malware can read information from the memory of running programs. This could be browser passwords, email messages, photos, cryptographic keys, payment card data. In addition, the problem also affects server processors, so attackers can gain access to data stored in the cloud.

The researchers shared the vulnerabilities with Intel, AMD, and ARM back in June 2017, so the companies had time to study the problem and find a solution. To put the scale of the issue into perspective, there are currently more than 120 billion chips in production that use one ARM design or another. So if we were to look only at CPUs for smartphones or tablets, the percentage of vulnerable devices would be much higher: popular cores like the Cortex-A57, A72, or A9 are all vulnerable to varying degrees (along with the less common A8, A15, A17, A73, and A75, as well as R7 and R8). More common ARM CPU cores like the Cortex-A7 or Cortex-A53 are not vulnerable.