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| Chromium Browsers support Intel CET security feature |
Chrome based browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge will soon support Intel CET to avoid various security vulnerabilities.
Intel CET is a hardware security feature that was first introduced in 2016 and added to the eleventh generation of Intel processors in 2020.
CET is designed to protect software from ROP and JOP attacks. These attacks alter the normal operation of the application in order to execute malicious code for the attacker.
According to Microsoft's Baiju Patel, JOP or ROP attacks can be difficult to detect or prevent because the attacker uses existing code from executable memory in innovative ways to modify the program's behavior.
These vulnerabilities include attacks that bypass browser sandboxes or execute code remotely while visiting websites. Hardware-based CET solutions prevent these attempts by causing anomalies when changing normal operations.
Windows 10 supports Intel security features through an implementation method called a hardware app.
Jonathan Norman (Jonathan Norman), Head of Security Vulnerability Research, Microsoft Edge, said: Version 90 of the browser supports Intel CET functions.
Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser uses multiple processes to perform different tasks.
According to Norman, browser, GPU, and plug-in processes use Intel CET.
This security feature doesn't appear to be specific to the browser as it applies to all Chromium browsers, including Chrome, Brave, and Opera.
The Mozilla Foundation also hopes to add Intel CET support to Firefox, but the implementation status hasn't been updated yet.
Windows 10 users with an Intel 11th Generation processor or an AMD Zen 3 Ryzen processor (which also supports CET) can use Windows Task Manager to verify that the process is using hardware security.
New versions of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are expected to be released on April 13, 2021.