Google Chrome Feature Guards Users From Spectre Attacks
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Site isolation helps keep most of your data out of reach from hackers looking to exploit the Spectre vulnerability.
The Meltdown and Spectre security threats have been worrying security experts since they were discovered.
Google has introduced a new feature to protect the users of its Chrome browser from a Spectre-type attack. The tech giant made the announcement in a blog post on Wednesday.
The latest iteration of the browser, Chrome 67, will be employing Site Isolation. So, what is it?
"Site Isolation is a large change to Chrome's architecture that limits each renderer process to documents from a single site. As a result, Chrome can rely on the operating system to prevent attacks between processes, and thus, between sites," the blog post explains.
So if a Spectre attack does occur, there's going to only be limited amounts of information available to an attacker.
Chrome users shouldn't notice anything too different as they browse the Internet day-to-day. There will, however, be a 10 to 13 percent memory overhead, as the site isolation process runs on the browser.
Mobile users won't be left out either. Chrome 68 for Android will be adding a feature similar to the desktop version.
These browser updates aren't enough to protect you entirely from Spectre and Meltdown threats. Security experts recommend that people install other software updates as soon as possible.