Meltdown and Spectre - Professor Mark Handley, UCL

Explore the intricacies of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities affecting modern CPUs in this comprehensive lecture by Professor Mark Handley from UCL. Delve into the world of speculative execution in pipelined superscalar CPUs and understand how side-channel attacks can reveal sensitive information. Learn about the significant changes required in operating systems, hypervisors, CPU firmware, compilers, and browsers to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Gain insights into the inner workings of modern CPUs, their performance optimization techniques, and the security implications that arise as a result. Discover the various mitigation strategies being implemented across different levels of computer systems to address these critical security flaws. This in-depth talk, presented at the Alan Turing Institute, offers a thorough examination of one of the most significant cybersecurity issues in recent years, providing valuable knowledge for computer scientists, security professionals, and anyone interested in understanding the complex relationship between CPU performance and security.