Intel Downfall (Gather Data Sampling) vulnerability impacts AVX2/AVX-512 workloads

Intel Downfall

After vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown were discovered in 2018, Intel processors have more vulnerabilities with the Downfall attacks that target the Gather instruction part of AVX2/AVX-512 and impact 6th generation Skylake up to 11th generation Tiger Lake processors introduced as far back as 2014. It does not affect more recent processors, and as somebody who has just purchased a laptop based on a 13th Raptor Lake processor, I guess I can breathe a sigh of relief until the next vulnerability is discovered, but people using hardware with older Intel processors will have to update the OS and suffer from a performance impact, at least for tasks leveraging AVX2 or AVX-512. The website about the Downfall vulnerability explains: Downfall attacks targets a critical weakness found in billions of modern processors used in personal and cloud computers. This vulnerability, identified as CVE-2022-40982, enables a user to access and steal data from […]

DIN-Rail mountable industrial 4G LTE router takes 9V to 36V DC power input

DIN Rail 4G router VPN

Waveshare WS-431E is an industrial-grade 4G LTE router with three Ethernet ports, WiFi 4, wall and DIN-Rail mounting options, and support for a wide power input range between 9V and 36V DC. The router is said to be based on two Qualcomm chips without further details provided, support various VPN protocols, and be suitable for networked medical equipment, Smart Agriculture, Smart Cities, robots, and security monitoring applications. Waveshare WS-431E specifications: SoC – “Dual Qualcomm chips” for WiFi and 4G LTE Networking Ethernet 1x 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 WAN port (can be configured as LAN) with auto MDI/MDIX, 1.5KV electromagnetic isolation protection 2x 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 LAN ports with auto MDI/MDIX, 1.5KV electromagnetic isolation protection 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 2×2 MIMO up to 300 Mbps, and 500-meter LoS range 4G LTE cellular 4G TDD-LTE – B38/40/41 4G FDD-LTE – B1/3/7/8/20/28A 3G WCDMA – B1/8 2G GSM/EDGE – B3/8 Nano SIM card […]

Get Early Access to the World’s Most Powerful Edge AI Accelerator! (Sponsored)

AxeleraAI EAP Evaluation Kit Box and System

Final Call for Axelera AI’s Early Access Program A few months ago Axelera AI launched their Metis AI hardware and software platform, available as M.2 cards, PCIe boards, and vision-ready systems, combined with the Voyager SDK. Now, Axelera AI’s Early Access Program (EAP) is entering its final phase – the first evaluation kits are almost ready to be shipped. This program offers a unique opportunity for customers who have signed up to experience firsthand the accuracy, performance, and usability of the Metis AI Platform. Axelera AI delivers the most powerful AI Accelerator in the world. With a PCIe AI Edge accelerator card delivering a peak performance of 214 TOPS. Using a smaller form factor, the M.2 AI Edge accelerator module delivers up to 106 TOPS peaks. This handles the most demanding vision applications. In this article, we will delve into the advantages of the EAP by sharing three customer stories […]

Flipper Zero hardware & wireless hacking tool gets an app “store” with open-source app

Flipper Zero

Flipper Zero portable multi-tool for pentesters and hardware hackers has now gotten an app “store” with currently around 100 free and open-source apps available through the device’s Android or iOS app. I missed it at the time, but the Flipper Zero launched on Kickstarter in July 2020 and was massively popular with close to 5 million dollars raised from almost 38,000 backers. The tool looks like a toy but it allows hacking with GPIOs and short-range wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, RFID, NFC, and infrared. Flipper Zero specifications: Wireless MCU  – STMicro STM32WB55RG with Arm Cortex-M4 application core @ 64 MHz, Arm Cortex-M0+ network core @ 32 MHz, 1024 KB flash, 256KB SRAM Storage – MicroSD card slot up to 64GB Display – 1.4-inch monochrome LCD (black on orange background) with 128×64 resolution via ST7565R SPI display controller Connectivity Bluetooth 5 LE & 802.15.4 via STM32WB55 microcontroller Bluetooth LE – […]

Feature-rich, low-profile Rockchip RK3588 SBC is made for digital signage displays, industrial PCs, NVR, and more

Low-profile Rockchip RK3588 board

Shenzhen Runwelltec RWA027-RK3588 is a low-profile SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3588 and equipped with plenty of connectors and ports. Those make the 11mm thin RK3588 board suitable for network video recorders (NVR), smart digital signage displays, industrial PCs, face recognition solutions, etc… The ultrathin board comes with up to 16GB RAM and up to 256GB eMMC flash, supports NVMe and SATA storage, provides HDMI 2.1 video output and five other LCD interfaces with optional USB/I2C touchscreen support, as well as two 4K-capable HDMI input ports, offers Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, up to nine USB interfaces, six UART, and so on. RWA027-RK3588 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES3.2, OpenCL 2.2, Vulkan1.1 AI Accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU VPU […]

FCC and NIST unveils the Cyber Trust Mark, a voluntary US IoT security label

Cyber Trust Mark

Representatives of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have recently unveiled a U.S. national IoT security label at the White House called the “U.S. Cyber Trust Mark” to inform consumers about the security, safety, and privacy of a specific IoT and Smart Home device. IoT security has been a problem for years with routers shipping with telnet enabled with default usernames and passwords, vulnerabilities in SDKs, unencrypted passwords transmitted over the network, millions of devices with older microcontrollers without built-in hardware security features, etc… There have been industry efforts to solve this such as the Arm PSA initiative, as well as regulations to prevent default usernames/passwords in new devices, but nothing about IoT security that can help a consumer find out if a device is supposed to be secure or not. The Cyber Trust Mark is supposed to address this issue. The […]

Diabolic Drive is a penetration testing USB key with 64GB storage, ESP8266 and ATmega32U4 microcontrollers

Diabolic Drive

Diabolic Drive may look like a 64GB USB flash drive and show as such when you insert it into your computer, but it’s actually a wireless keystroke injection tool with a Microchip ATmega32U4 8-bit AVR microcontroller and an Espressif Systems ESP8266 WiFi SoC. Egypt-based UNIT 72784 says their cyber security tool enables Red Teaming – the practice of rigorously identifying an attack path to breach a device’s security – as it behaves like a flash drive while being able to deploy keyboard strokes wirelessly through the ESP8266 WiFi MCU. Diabolic Drive specifications: MCUs Microchip ATmega32U4 microcontroller @ 16 MHz (5V) acting as a Serial Bridge Espressif Systems ESP8266EX microcontroller @ 160 MHZ (3.3V) with WiFi 4 support ATmega32U4 and ESP8266 are connected via Serial and I2C protocols thanks to an LDO regulator. Storage 64 GB flash storage up to 20MB/s read, 10MB/s write 4MB W25Q32 SPI flash memory o Antenna […]

NEWRACOM NRC7394 WiFi HaLow SoC delivers higher power efficiency and cost-effectiveness

Low cost WiFi Halow SoC

NEWRACOM has just introduced the NRC7394 Wi-Fi HaLow Arm Cortex-M3 SoC with higher power efficiency and lower cost than the previous generation NRC7292 Cortex-M3/M0 HaLow SoC and available in a 6x6mm package. I first wrote about the 802.11ah standard in 2014. Also known as the WiFi HaLow (consumers name), it operates in the 900 MHz band, offers a longer range and lower power consumption for items like IP cameras, and the first products came to market in 2021. I was expecting a flood of new WiFi HaLow devices in 2022 in my year 2021 round-up and it was not exactly a prescient prediction as it never happened. But maybe the new NRC7394 SoC will help make WiFi HaLow devices more popular by lowering the costs and further improving battery life. NEWRACOM NRC7394 key features: CPU – Arm Cortex-M3 core @ 32 MHz for IEEE 802.11ah WLAN and application Connectivity Full […]