One of the greatest virtues that communication devices usually have landscape They offer excellent security against hacker attacks. But this does not mean that everything is perfect and there are no small holes in their products. Found one that affects your M1 processors and bears his name. PAC-MAN.
Since one of the important details of this hole found appears at the hardware level, we are not talking about a higher-level software malfunction. The result is that no fix can be applied by downloading a security patch or upgrade. The reason is that it directly affects the Apple processor. And what does this really mean? Well, something as basic as there is no solution at the moment.
By the way, given that the structure of the new M2 is similar to that of previous processors (Apple Silicon), it is very possible that the fault detected by MIT engineers is also present only in the component that was originally present. On MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops. a hole produced from the base and the designso it doesn’t look like it can be fixed until the company’s CPU range is refreshed.
How does this Apple M1 vulnerability work?
What happens to the processor in both laptops and tablets of the Cupertino company is that the system is hacked. memory protection named PAC which works with control pointers. Using a combination of software and hardware, brute force engineers were able to discover the signature required to enter when the corresponding revision was made by the chip.
Since the values that the above-mentioned protection system can use are limited, it is possible to find what works thanks to the small innovative system, if the necessary power is applied. trial and error. Something curious and relevant is that no trace left, which should always be taken into account. However, despite everything that seems pretty dramatic, you shouldn’t worry if you have an Apple team with the M1.
Luckily it’s nothing serious
As we mentioned, there is currently no way to find a solution to the bug called PACMAN because we are talking about hardware (it can cause components to change if necessary). But yes, no high gravity in the hole found On the M1 processors of the North American company. The reason we say this is because the engineers themselves state that the vulnerability must be accompanied by a software hack for software to be effective. And that’s almost impossible right now.
In other words, if the usual forms of protection are preserved, no matter how many attacks are made on the processor, there will be no escape route to the operating system, which will be really serious for the user. Of course, Apple developers Caution Take care of this issue and fix it in the future – because with this problem hackers may discover a small crack that they can sneak into computers. The truth is, the fault is there, but it shouldn’t bother anyone using a computer or tablet with an M1 chip from the company with the bitten apple.
Source: Cincodias Elpais
