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Discovering flaws in chip: The Horn way

Cybersecurity experts keep discovering one after another malicious attempt forcing the software giants to devise an effective mechanism to rein in the hackers. The findings are alarming and dangerous and if these are not firmly dealt with the things would turn from bad to worse.

Each of the researchers working in this field has some gathered some striking experience before they had jumped to a conclusion. Let’s look at Jann Horn.

He was none other than the Google cybersecurity expert to have discovered the biggest chip vulnerable hole that struck the attention of all the researchers groping for a solution in this area.

Only after his startling findings, the entire industry cleared the decks to design the processors to counter the possible hacking threats. Further, his extensive research encouraged many students to concentrate in this field to explore every possibility of aborting the notorious attempts.

The flaws he discovered put many experts on alert decades ago to safeguard the personal computers, internet servers, laptops, and smartphones. His path-breaking research has started paying dividends one after another even these days. Initially, Horn made a simple attempt to examine the computer hardware and gradually he proceeded step by step to reach the very vulnerable areas with flawed designs where the hackers often exploit the advantage.

After months of examining the chips, Horn came to an initial conclusion that as the processor gets wrong its memory into the store must come from a misguided entry point and the hackers are aware of these.

Further investigation gave him more lead to proceed in search of vulnerable areas where the hackers keep operating. A young circle of research spotted similar flaws and findings infusing more confidence in Horn. His untiring efforts have been widely accepted when the entire school of cyber experts openly accepted Meltdown and Spectre.

His school teachers got wind of his talents much before he stole the limelight. They came to known Horn and his talent as soon as he found security problems with the school's computer network.

The man who tried to discover Horn was Mario Heiderich. The founder of Berlin-based cybersecurity consultancy Cure53 evinced keen interest to deploy Horn as he was not turning 20 then. Finally, the post-doctoral research Horn's undergraduate thesis supervisor. Then only Horn logged on into Cure53 as a contractor.

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