Researchers discover security flaw in microchips

Researchers have discovered a fundamental flaw in microprocessor technology that could allow hackers to obtain computer users' secret information, a French newspaper has reported.

A team led by German cryptology expert Jean-Pierre Seifert has discovered that chips are now more vulnerable because of the way they are manufactured to to process data more quickly.

"Security has been sacrificed for the benefit of performance," French daily Le Monde quoted Seifert as saying Saturday.

The danger of hackers breaking into computer chips, using a technique known as Branch Prediction Analysis (PBA), previously necessitated a very large number of attempts to decipher a cryptology key.

But Seifert's research envisages that hackers will find it far easier and quicker in the future using a small piece of spy software that tracks microchips.

In a still-confidential study, Seifert and his colleagues explain how they managed "in only one attempt" to obtain a 512-bit encryption key in just a few thousandths of a second.

Seifert plans to demonstrate his method at the beginning of 2007 at an conference on encryption.
-- AFP