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A major security vulnerability had the potential to hit “billions” of computers, according to the Google researchers who discovered it. The security flaw, dubbed “Downfall”, attacked Intel processors in a way that would allow hackers to steal passwords, encryption keys and private data from users. That’s according to Daniel Moghimi, the senior research scientist at Google who found the problem and disclosed it this week. He alerted Intel about the issue with its chips, and the company has since sent out an update to fix it. But the issue could have affected “billions of personal and cloud computers”, Google said. “Had these vulnerabilities not been discovered by Google researchers, and instead by adversaries, they would have enabled attackers to compromise Internet users,” the researchers wrote in a blog post. The attack worked by breaking through the boundary that is intended to keep software safe from attacks on the hardware. In doing so, attackers would have been able to find data that belongs to other users on the system, the attackers said. It did so by exploiting technologies that are intended to speed up various processes on the chip. Attackers were able to exploit those tools to steal sensitive information that should have stayed available only to its owner, when they were signed in. The nature of the attack means that hackers would need to be on the same physical processor as the person they are attacking. But that would be possible using malware, or the shared computing model that powers cloud computing, for instance. Intel said that the problem does not affect recent versions of its chips, and that the fix does not cause major problems. But it did suggest that users could disable the fix, if they thought the risk was not worth the slight drawbacks in performance. The company also told Bleeping Computer that “trying to exploit this outside of a controlled lab environment would be a complex undertaking”. Read More AI breakthrough could dramatically reduce planes’ global warming impact Earth hit by powerful ‘X-1’ solar flare, after fears of ‘cannibal’ blast Even Zoom wants staff to ‘come back to the office’

LAS VEGAS & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 9, 2023--

Google says it has made a major artificial intelligence breakthrough that could dramatically reduce the climate impact from flying. The company partnered with an airline and data provider to build a new artificially intelligent system that looks to reduce the amount of contrails produced by planes. Contrails are the long, white lines that appear behind planes, and can sometimes make the sky appear cloudy. They are formed as soot from planes’ exhausts turn into ice – and when they merge together, they trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the Earth. Those contrails account for more than a third of the global warming impact of flying, according to the UN. If planes are able to avoid flying through areas that create contrails, however, then they will reduce the amount of warming. If the human-made clouds can be stopped, then their warming effects can be reduced. In an attempt to do so, Google researchers gathered satellite imagery, weather and flight path data and fed it into an AI system. That was then used to try and generate routes for pilots that avoided creating those contrails. Pilots at American then flew some 70 test flights over a period of six months, Google said, following those AI-generated routes. The researchers then examined satellite imagery and found that the contrails produced were reduced by 54 per cent. “This is the first proof point that commercial flights can verifiably avoid contrails and thereby reduce their climate impact,” Google said. The company did also note that the flights burned 2 per cent additional fuel, though Google suggested that the flights could be selectively chosen. Google said it would be “working across the aviation industry to use AI to make contrail avoidance a reality over the coming years” in its announcement. It said it has the “potential to be a cost-effective, scalable solution to reduce the climate impact of flying”. Airlines are currently not charged for their climate impact, however, and there is therefore no indication that they would opt to use the routes that help reduce global warming. Read More Google will now alert you if people are talking about you Google Assistant will be ‘supercharged’ with AI like ChatGPT and Bard Google warns Gmail users they could be about to lose their account

The Earth narrowly avoided being hit by a “cannibal” solar flare – but has been lashed by powerful enough blasts to disrupt communications. In recent days, space weather forecasters had warned that the Earth could be hit by a range of powerful flares that have been ejected from the Sun. Particular warnings focused on the “cannibal” flare, which was forecast to potentially glance Earth. “Cannibal” solar flares are formed when a later blast catches up with one that was ejected earlier, and consumes it. The energy of the two is combined, which can make them far more powerful than flares that are released on their own. The latest cannibal flare appears to have missed Earth, however. Forecasts had suggested that it was only expected to glance the planet, and so a miss was perhaps likely. The Earth was struck by an X-class flare, however. That is the most potent category of solar flares, and can cause considerable disruption on Earth. This time around, space weather experts warned that the blast was enough to disrupt radio and navigation signals in North America. It was measured as an R3 blackout – on a scale that runs from 1 to 5 – which meant that areas in the US and Canada as well as on the Pacific Ocean were at risk of having radio signals and navigation disrupted. The Sun moves through a cycle of activity every 11 years, during which it releases more and less “coronal mass ejections” or CMEs, and it is currently in a particularly busy part of that cycle. Those CMEs can bring energetic flares that hit Earth – and could one day cause considerable problems on the planet, disrupting energy grids and other important infrastructure. The latest flare was measured at X1.5 and is the 20th such X flare to have hit the Earth in its current period. It came out of a particularly active part of the Sun, and followed other, weaker flares, the UK’s Met Office said. Nonetheless, experts said the “minor ongoing solar radiation storm” was “waning” and that it did not expect significant disruption in the coming days. Read More Giant space ‘umbrella’ tethered to asteroid could protect Earth from climate crisis James Webb Space Telescope captures new images of the Ring Nebula Massive solar storm strikes Earth, Moon and Mars together for first time in history

Intel fixed the security flaw known as "Downfall" this week, which is described as a

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