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Message-ID: <403A6E10.3090003@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com>
From: hescominsoon at emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com (William Warren)
Subject: Coming soon: CPU fix for buffer overflows
leading to cruddier and more bloated code and yet more security
problems..won't it be interesting if these hardware technologies have
"overflows" of their own..:)
Richard M. Smith wrote:
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994696
>
> Chips to ease Microsoft's big security nightmare
> 10:00 22 February 04
>
> Chip makers are planning a new generation of microprocessors that should
> plug the gaps that led Microsoft to issue a "critical security alert" last
> week.
>
> The alert was sparked by the discovery that a raft of Microsoft programs
> were vulnerable to a problem called "buffer overflow", which hackers can
> exploit to extract private information from a PC. And the risk of such
> attacks only worsened when, two days after the alert was issued, critical
> Windows "source code" was leaked on to the internet letting hackers see how
> it works.
>
> A buffer is a section of computer memory that can store a set amount of
> data. Sometimes, usually because of a software bug, the processor sends more
> data to the buffer than it can hold, causing it to overflow into the next
> chunk of buffer memory. This makes computers vulnerable to hackers, because
> by deliberately making a buffer overflow they can force the computer to
> execute their malicious code.
>
> The problem is hard to detect, as popular programming languages, like C and
> C++ do not make it easy to track when programs are vulnerable to overflow.
> But now chip makers Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel are developing
> processor chips that will deal with the problem.
>
> AMD's Athlon-64 (for PCs) and Opteron (for servers) will protect against
> buffer overflows when used with a new version of Windows XP. Intel plans
> similar features on next generation Pentium chips.
>
> ...
>
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--
May God Bless you and everything you touch.
My "foundation" verse:
Isaiah 54:17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt
condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their
righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
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