Two new Security Vulnerabilities affect every Computer and Phone manufactured since 1995.

Two new vulnerabilities, "Meltdown" and "Spectre" can let an attacker access whatever data is in an affected devices memory.  Meltdown can access sensitive data and files by melting down security boundaries typically enforced by the hardware.  The Spectre exploit tricks apps into leaking secrets.

Though there has been no known exploits at this time you can believe that the bad guys are already looking at ways to exploit these new flaws.  There are many innocent websites that have been unwittingly compromised with malicious code that is downloaded and executed when that page is visited.

An example of a worst-case scenario is a low-privileged user on a vulnerable computer could run JavaScript code on an ordinary-looking web page, which could then gain access to the contents of protected memory.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/security-flaws-affect-every-intel-chip-since-1995-arm-processors-vulnerable/?loc=newsletter_large_thumb_featured&ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=27630927001468733386426006914379

The vulnerabilities were discovered by Google's Project Zero team.

Last year, Google’s Project Zero team discovered serious security flaws caused by “speculative execution,” a technique used by most modern processors (CPUs) to optimize performance.
The Project Zero researcher, Jann Horn, demonstrated that malicious actors could take advantage of speculative execution to read system memory that should have been inaccessible. For example, an unauthorized party may read sensitive information in the system’s memory such as passwords, encryption keys, or sensitive information open in applications. Testing also showed that an attack running on one virtual machine was able to access the physical memory of the host machine, and through that, gain read-access to the memory of a different virtual machine on the same host.
These vulnerabilities affect many CPUs, including those from AMD, ARM, and Intel, as well as the devices and operating systems running on them.

https://security.googleblog.com/2018/01/todays-cpu-vulnerability-what-you-need.html


Meltdown and Spectre: Here’s what Intel, Apple, Microsoft, others are doing about it

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-heres-what-intel-apple-microsoft-others-are-doing-about-it/

http://www.eweek.com/security/microsoft-delivers-emergency-windows-10-patch-for-meltdown-cpu-bug


Apple responds to Intel, ARM chip flaws: All Macs and iOS devices are vulnerable, but don’t panic

http://bgr.com/2018/01/05/apple-security-chip-flaws-iphone-ipad-all-macs/


Microsoft issues patch for Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for Windows 10 users already.  It can be downloaded and installed directly from the following link;

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4056892/windows-10-update-kb4056892

Some AVs may block you from installing the patch.  If you are having difficulty check the following article.

Windows Meltdown-Spectre fix: How to check if your AV is blocking Microsoft patch
Antivirus firms play patch catch-up, as Microsoft releases Meltdown firmware updates for Surface devices.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-meltdown-spectre-fix-how-to-check-if-your-av-is-blocking-microsoft-patch/?loc=newsletter_large_thumb_featured&ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=27630927001468733386426006914379

Intel Generation 8 CPUs, new design. More powerful with more cores.

Intel Unveils the 8th Gen Intel Core Processor Family for Desktop, Featuring Intel’s Best Gaming Processor Ever

Newest Processors Deliver Premium Performance, with a Boost in Frame Rate of up to 25% Gen over Gen

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

• New 8th Gen Intel® Core™ desktop processors and Intel® Z370 chipset are perfect for gamers, content creators and overclockers with a range of unlocked1 “K” processors.
• Includes a new Intel® Core™ i7 desktop processor that is the best gaming processor ever from Intel2, first-ever 6-core Intel® Core™ i5 desktop processor and 4-core Intel® Core™ i3 desktop processor.
• Performance boosts that deliver frame rate improvements of up to 25 percent3 compared with 7th Gen Intel Core for smooth gaming experiences and up to 65 percent faster editing4 in content creation compared with a 3-year-old machine.

Intel has introduced the latest generation, (8th, Coffee Lake) of it's Core Premium performance processors.  This new generation is different from previous chips with more cores.  The entry level Core i3 now has 4 processor cores, up from 2 and the Core i5 & i7s have 6 cores, up from the 4 which have been the standard since the 1st Core chips were introduced.  This increase enables up to 12 threads of data being processed by the i7 at one time.  

You may be thinking wait a minute guy, what does all this mean?  Before multi core processors were introduced, you bought a computer with a CPU that was 1 processor.  Multi-Core. Multi-core technology refers to CPUs that contain two or more processing cores. These cores operate as separate processors within a single chip. By using multiple cores, processor manufacturers can increase the performance of a CPU without raising the processor clock speed.

In addition to the increase in processing power, up to 40 platform PCIe 3.0 lanes supported with the new 370 chipset, this is up from 16 lanes in the Intel Core i7-7700K processor (Kaby Lake family) just a generation ago.  Wait a minute Phil, what does this mean?

Think about these lanes as highways.  Data whether your input or instructions to devices that carry out your computer operations are carried along these lanes.  They can quickly become as congested as I-285 on a workday thus bogging down your performance.  In fact many devices use more than 1 lane.

For example - gaming graphics cards use 16 lanes. Some powerful gaming computers have two graphics cards - that is 32 PCIe lanes (two x16 ports).  Previous generation Intel i7s had less lanes.  They couldn't handle two x16 graphics cards. For some gaming enthusiasts or engineers that would be a serious problem. They would have to choose a different CPU (maybe a more expensive Xeon) if they need more than 4 cores and two 16 graphics cards.

PCIe SSD drives use multiple PCIe lanes too (x4 lanes or x8 lanes).

Many gigabit network adapters use PCIe x4 lanes, there are also 10-gigabit server adapters and they use PCIe x8 lanes.

So as you can see 16 lanes is not that much. If motherboard manufacturer put one x16 slot, one x8 slot and one x4 slot (x28 total) - you can use only 3 devices there and... that's all.


For more details about this exciting new family of processors please read more at;

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-unveils-8th-gen-intel-core-processor-family-desktop/