Foreshadow malware that could hack Intel computers stopped by University of Adelaide researcher Yuval Yarom and team

MILLIONS of computers around the world with sensitive information are at risk from a major new cyberthreat uncovered by an Adelaide cyber expert and his team.

MILLIONS of computers around the world with sensitive information are at risk from a major new cyberthreat uncovered by an Adelaide cyber expert and his team.

University of Adelaide computer science researcher Yuval Yarom was part of an international team that discovered the culprit, dubbed Foreshadow.

A separate international team simultaneously discovered the flaw, which could allow a malicious attacker to obtain information.

Dr Yarom, who also works at CSIRO’s Data61 project, said Foreshadow was a flaw that would allow enemies to break into “fortresses” in Intel Processors to access memory and data.

“Once a single fortress is breached, the whole system becomes vulnerable,” he said.

The potentially disastrous situation was revealed on Wednesday, but Intel has already released patches and updates to thwart Foreshadow as well as a variant of it called Foreshadow-NG.

Intel said enemy forces are carrying out increasingly sophisticated attacks.

The company advises that people download and install updates to their systems as soon as possible.

“We are not aware of reports that any of these methods have been used in real-world exploits, but this further underscores the need for everyone to adhere to security best practices,” the company said in a statement.

“Once systems are updated, we expect the risk … will be low.”

The Federal Government is stepping up its cyber defences, with Cyber Security Minister Angus Taylor last week likening it to tough action on asylum seekers.

“I believe that stopping the bots needs to have that same single-minded focus that we as the government had in stopping the boats,” he said.

“Zero successful attacks, zero mistakes and zero negative impacts.”

The Government is worried that cybercriminals could tear down critical infrastructure, such as power grids or telecommunications.

It is concerned that a major cyberattack could even damage the national identity by destroying births, deaths and marriage databases, Australia’s legislation, health, immigration and education records.

Mr Taylor said the threat today was “different and greater” than the Government imagined just two years ago.

Meanwhile, former lord mayor Stephen Yarwood — who is now an “urban futurist” consultant — was hacked this week; however, it was a more low-level attack that he said was probably someone “just pinching credit” from online gaming accounts.

He said the thief targeted multiple accounts and used data from his phone’s hotspot.

“Don’t have the same password for anything, folks,” he wrote on Facebook.

Foreshadow is similar to other flaws in Intel chips, called Meltdown and Spectre.

These vulnerabilities have prompted some warnings about a looming “chipocalypse”, although that term is more often used in relation to potato crisps.