It’s always been a thing that the only way to completely be safe after malware is yeeting the old system and getting a new one…
And even then there have been actively exploited issues where the system gets re-infected when reloading the data from a backup. (My memory is a bit rusty on that one, but it was just data being restored, nothing that should install anything)
They’re intrinsically linked, in fact. If you have kernel access, you can do any number of things, including but not limited to persistent rootkits. I agree that this bug is one step further, since it affects the processor itself, but if somebody has ring 0 access that shouldn’t, you already have problems.
As pointed out elsewhere, the attack requires kernel-level access, and anyone with that access can do a lot of damage anyway.
And the flaw can be fixed (there’s a fix out), it’s just that there’s no remediation once the flaw has been exploited.
One of these things is not like the other.
Yeah, turning an exploit into one that survives a fresh install is a big deal.
It’s always been a thing that the only way to completely be safe after malware is yeeting the old system and getting a new one…
And even then there have been actively exploited issues where the system gets re-infected when reloading the data from a backup. (My memory is a bit rusty on that one, but it was just data being restored, nothing that should install anything)
They’re intrinsically linked, in fact. If you have kernel access, you can do any number of things, including but not limited to persistent rootkits. I agree that this bug is one step further, since it affects the processor itself, but if somebody has ring 0 access that shouldn’t, you already have problems.
Read it again, in context. What they said is perfectly valid.