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Aren't ARM processors are vulnerable to some of the same security flaws? What are the alternatives? AMD got lucky in a sense but the reality is you can't be on
by pkaye 9y ago
Aren't ARM processors are vulnerable to some of the same security flaws? What are the alternatives? AMD got lucky in a sense but the reality is you can't be on any one horse.
- electrograv 9y agoAMD is no more lucky than ARM, though Intel was ‘unlucky’: Spectre affects Intel, AMD, and ARM alike, while Meltdown Intel CPUs disproportionately (AMD and ARM CPUs have been mostly unaffected by it).
- berkut 9y agoSome ARM CPUs are vulnerable to Meltdown: https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update
- DSMan195276 9y agoThat's not entirely accurate. There are a lot of ARM CPUs that are not vulnerable to Spectre, and that includes a lot of them that are in use in actual devices. For example, my phone happens to use a Cortex-A53, which is not vulnerable. It is however easy to miss this detail from their 'security update' [0] because the table doesn't list CPUs that aren't affected. Also, I don't believe the single ARM CPU that's vulnerable to meltdown (Cortex-A75) has actually been included in any devices at this point, so for now it is safe to assume any ARM-based device you have is not vulnerable to meltdown. [0] https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update
- Narishma 9y agoI believe Apple's ARM CPUs are vulnerable to Meltdown.
- colejohnson66 9y agoNot the Watch though. Apple, as expected, hasn’t said why.
- protomyth 9y agoProbably because its a much simpler core like all the other chips that are immune. It simply doesn't do the the logic that would get the chip in trouble.
- pkaye 9y agoThat is because a lot of ARM cores don't have out-of-order or speculation capabilities.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- contrarian_ 9y agoAMD CPUs are completely unaffected by Meltdown, since AMD checks permissions before fetching memory into the cache.