Intel’s Tiger Lake Processors Will Feature Chip-Based Malware Protection

When it comes to protecting your computer against malware, the majority of people rely on software. However, software can really only do so much and might not be particularly effective against certain types of malware, such as control-flow hijacking attacks that might not be detected as they tend to hide behind legitimate code.

The good news is that moving forwards, Intel has announced that starting with its Tiger Lake CPUs, they will be building hardware-based malware protection. This will come in the form of the Intel Control-Flow Enforcement Technology which according to the company, will be able to protect users against the attack we mentioned above.

According to Intel, “Intel CET offers software developers two key capabilities to help defend against control-flow hijacking malware: indirect branch tracking and shadow stack. Indirect branch tracking delivers indirect branch protection to defend against jump/call-oriented programming (JOP/COP) attack methods. Shadow stack delivers return address protection to help defend against return-oriented programming (ROP) attack methods.”

Intel has also said that they are working with Microsoft to integrate the feature in Windows 10, although it will only work on newer computers that uses Intel processors that have CET instructions. Intel has come under fire in the recent years over certain exploits such as Meltdown and Spectre. Hopefully with these new protections, Intel will be able to avoid similar controversies in the future.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Computers
Tags: Hack, Intel, Malware, Security