Intel Inside? Our Experts Debate Threat in New Chip Flaw

Posted: January 5th, 2018

By Bob Gourley

Bob Gourley is founder of the technology due diligence consultancy Crucial Point, where he provides CTO services and cybersecurity assessments in support of M&A transactions. Bob’s first career was as a naval intelligence officer, which included operational tours in Europe and Asia. Bob was the Director of Intelligence (J2) at DoD’s first operational cyber defense organization JTF-CND. Following retirement from the Navy, Bob was an executive with TRW and Northrop Grumman, and then returned to government service as the CTO of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Bob was named one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the globe by Infoworld and was named by Washingtonian as one of DC’s “Tech Titans.” Bob’s most recent book, The Cyber Threat, provides business executives with actionable insights into the threat landscape.

By Michael Sulmeyer

Michael Sulmeyer is the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project Director at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Contributing Editor for Lawfare. Before Harvard, he served as the Director for Plans and Operations for Cyber Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. There, he worked closely with the Joint Staff and Cyber Command on a variety of efforts to counter malicious cyber activity against U.S. and DoD interests. For this work, he received the Secretary Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Previously, he worked on arms control and the maintenance of strategic stability between the United States, Russia, and China.

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two major software vulnerabilities in the Intel microprocessors inside the vast majority of all computers. Dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre,” the vulnerabilities could allow hackers to siphon off the entire memory contents of computers, mobile phones and servers that run on cloud networks.

Two Cipher Brief experts – Bob Gourley and Michael Sulmeyer – offered distinctly different takes in conversation with The Cipher Brief, adapted below.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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