We’ve been busily auditing client environments and evaluating their readiness for Spectre mitigation. Frustratingly, of the long list of devices, computers and mainboards we have, the vast majority of products greater than two years old don’t have firmware patches available on the manufacturers’ support websites. In reaching out to Gigabyte support to determine if they did, in fact, have firmware available for a particular model, we were then provided with the file. When we asked why they have firmware available that isn’t being published on the product’s support page, theySEE DETAILS <...

Following up from our recent article on the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, we’ve had confirmation from Gigabyte that Award BIOS motherboard products cannot apply the Intel CPU microcode that patches the Spectre flaws. According to them this affects all Award BIOS products from all manufacturers. In that case, even though the CPUs may be supported by Intel, the platform itself is not, so there’s no way to apply the CPU microcode and protect that system from Spectre. There’s a possibility that Microsoft may release a future patch that includes theSEE DETAILS

This probably seems like a stupid question to ask – obviously, IT is computers, and everything to do with them. Well sure, it’s that. But it’s also data, it’s where you store that data, it’s how you access that data, it’s what you do with that data. It’s what that data’s worth to you. It’s what losing that data, or having that data stolen, is worth to you.For a long time, Information Technology has been considered an operational cost to businesses, a necessary cost that improves efficiency, increases productivity, andSEE DETAILS

You’ve probably heard of Meltdown and Spectre by now – reports have been circulating across the Internet and even in mainstream news media since the beginning of January. These pose a catastrophic risk to businesses everywhere, but the cause may turn out to be more bureaucratic than technical.So just how bad is this? Surely it’s being blown out of all proportion?Unfortunately, not really. If anything there’s far less attention being paid than the issue actually warrants. Some security experts have even been downplaying the risks because these vulnerabilities don’t allow remoteSEE DETAILS ...

‘Quality’ is a word that’s so overused, it has essentially lost its meaning – consider how often you’ve heard or read that word associated with someone’s product or service. When everyone’s using the same description, it’s no longer a point of differentiation – our eyes and ears slide past it, looking for something that actually stands out. Even legally, all products are expected to be of ‘reasonably high’ quality, or they’re not even allowed to be sold – you’re not allowed to deliberately sell something you know to be ofSEE DETAILS