The greater the truth, the greater the libel - Lord Ellenborough
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Intel will leave McAfee alone, but it can secure our chips
AN EXECUTIVE at Intel has said that the chipmaker will not change McAfee from what it is today, but will use some of the insecurity firm's expertise in some of its future products.
Glenn Le Vernois of Intel's programme office said, "[We] make great chips, but there's a lot that we don't know about security, like anti-virus for example. There's a lot that [McAfee] can teach us about effective solutions in the environment it sells in every single day."
"We're going to be learning from McAfee, but at the same time it is going to be running its own business and revenue streams. But it helps us become a more security conscious and focused company in the way it does business."
Intel was speaking with The INQUIRER at Infosec, London's annual trade show about all things information security. Intel is obviously better known as a chip company, but Vernois explained, "Five or ten years ago it was all about the processor, but then we expanded into a second vector called communications."
"Our third pillar is now security. The acquisition of McAfee and some of the things we're doing is very necessary for Intel and other companies to create a secure environment."
"If you look at websites, emails, phishing attacks, identity theft, trojans - all that nasty stuff affects our users on a daily basis, we want to provide stronger and richer solutions that protects users data."
This year Intel is on its third generation of anti-theft technology, which among other things allows a user to disable a lost or stolen PC with a 'poison pill' that can delete vital encrypted material from the hardware and block the laptop from booting, essentially turning it into a brick.
Of new Sandy Bridge and Huron River devices Vernois said, "With the third generation we've added out-of-band capabilities. If I have a 3G modem I can send an actual text message to that PC to disable it."
Sandy Bridge processor core Intel PCs also carry Identity Protection Technology (IPT), which works with the authentication systems of other companies by using an embedded token. The token can confirm a user's identity for a portal, participating website or virtual private network using ISV algorithms. µ
Tags: Security
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AES, thanks for the post; I stand duly corrected on that.
And that being the case, now I hold Intel's motives in this new "secure the chips" effort even more in suspicion. Since they already have AES acceleration, and since we already have the software in place (Linux, OpenBSD, and so on) to encrypt the hard disk...WHY do we need a repeat of the Treacherous Platform Module??
Sum Yung Gai - you are a little behind the times it would seem, Intel has had hardware accelerated AES for over a year now and the new instructions are being adopted by AMD in their upcoming bulldozer chips.
More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES_instruction_set
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-advanced-encryption-standard-instructions-aes-ni/
The problem as I see it... with the capabilities to brick devices remotely (not that it doesn't currently exist), what happens when it gets hacked and consumers get bricked en masse? Who is to blame? The hacker? Or the company who put such an achilles heel in place to begin with?
UnTrusted Computing is the first thing that came to my mind. This sort of thing is why I'm glad AMD is around.
If Intel really want to make things more secure, then they should add a hardware crypto engine like what VIA did with the C3 and C7 chips some time back. Then, software could use the hardware to do on-the-fly encryption/decryption on the storage device. Good algorithms would be Blowfish and AES. Though 3DES is slow compared to these two, it works well, and given its popularity (IPSec, anyone?), it too should be in there. There are plenty of VIA C3/C7 boxes out there running OpenBSD-based OS's that are acting as IPSec gateways.
Heck...I'm a little surprised AMD hasn't done it!
For the first time ever, today our IT Department got a cold call from an AV vendor: McAfee
If you own Intel stock, sell now, before the rush.
Almost sounds like Intel spent $billions on McAfee without knowing what they wanted out of it.
Wow, MacAfee Intel.... What a colossal error it is purchase this company. The shareholders should seriously ask the management what they are doing. How does an antivirus company Intels portfolio. Oh I know, typical answer - I cannot possibly understand Intels direction since Im not on the board.
Of all the consumer companies out there doing wireless, mobile computing, PC manufacturing Intels picks this company? One can easily argue MacAfee is on the downward slope of the antivirus market - they are a lagger, not a leader...
I am so glad I sold off my Intel stock a decade ago. I have yet to regret that decision....