New 'PacMan' flaw in Apple Silicon is an echo of Spectre and Meltdown

Researchers at MIT have discovered an unfixable vulnerability in Apple Silicon that could allow attackers to bypass a chip's "last line of defense" — but most Mac users shouldn't be worried.

More specifically, the team at MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory found that Apple's implementation of pointer authentication in the M1 system-on-chip can be overcome with a specific hardware attack they've dubbed "PACMAN."

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