Pub. 7 2018 Issue 2

The CommunityBanker 18 B A N K B Y T E S “The sky is falling.” T his is how one security writer described the initial panic experienced by the IT world early this year. Two unprecedented vulnerabilities named Meltdown and Spectre were reported on January 3, 2018. These two vulnerabilities were and are a big deal because they are hardware vulnerabilities affecting any device with a silicon chip. This includes microprocessors on workstations and servers, mobile phones, tablets, cloud services, and other platforms. There were several matters which made these vulnerabilities seem scarier than other vulnerabilities. • They were/are widespread. • Mitigation came from three main groups of companies: processor companies, operating system companies, and cloud providers. Reso- lution might require updates from three different sources. • There were unanticipated incompatibilities in the initial updates which could crash patched systems. The Sky is (Not) Falling By Carl Cope, CISA, CISSP “There were several matters which made these vulnerabilities seem scarier than other vulnerabilities.”