Tuesday, April 17th 2018

Intel Announces iGPU-accelerated Threat Detection Technology

Today, Intel is taking another step forward, with two new technology announcements: Intel Threat Detection Technology (Intel TDT), a set of silicon-level capabilities that will help the ecosystem detect new classes of threats, and Intel Security Essentials, a framework that standardizes the built-in security features across Intel processors. We are also announcing a strengthened academic partnership with Purdue University, to help accelerate the development and availability of cybersecurity talent.

Intel Threat Detection Technology leverages silicon-level telemetry and functionality to help our industry partners improve the detection of advanced cyberthreats and exploits. Today we are announcing the first two Intel Threat Detection Technology capabilities, including implementation plans by Microsoft and Cisco.

The first new capability is Accelerated Memory Scanning. Current scanning technologies can detect system memory-based cyberattacks, but at the cost of CPU performance. With Accelerated Memory Scanning, the scanning is handled by Intel's integrated graphics processor, enabling more scanning, while reducing the impact on performance and power consumption. Early benchmarking on Intel test systems show CPU utilization dropped from 20 percent to as little as 2 percent.

Microsoft will integrate Accelerated Memory Scanning into Microsoft Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection's (ATP)* antivirus capability, which is available now.

The second Intel Threat Detection Technology is Intel Advanced Platform Telemetry. Intel Advanced Platform Telemetry combines platform telemetry with machine learning algorithms to improve the detection of advanced threats, while reducing false positives and minimizing performance impact. The first Cisco product to take advantage of this integration will be the Cisco Tetration platform, which provides data center security and cloud workload protection.

I am excited about the progress we are making, together with these key partners, to pioneer innovations across silicon and software to help protect customers from emerging threats.

Intel Security Essentials: Built-in Security Foundation
Today we are also launching Intel Security Essentials, which will ensure a consistent set of critical root-of-trust hardware security capabilities across Intel Core , Intel Xeon and Intel Atom processors. These capabilities are platform integrity technologies for secure boot, hardware protections (for data, keys and other digital assets), accelerated cryptography and trusted execution enclaves to protect applications at runtime.
This standard set of capabilities will accelerate trusted computing as customers build solutions rooted in hardware-based protections. Further, these capabilities, directly integrated into Intel silicon, are designed to improve the security posture of computing, lower the cost of deploying security solutions and minimize the impact of security on performance.

Strengthening Academic Partnership with Purdue University
Intel is committed to being an active partner in the security ecosystem. The tech industry has a well-documented shortage of cybersecurity talent. To meet today's cybersecurity challenges, we need the industry and academia to accelerate the development and availability of the next generation of security-minded professionals.

To that end, we are strengthening cybersecurity partnerships with academia to advance research and begin to close the talent gap in the industry. Today, Purdue University is announcing the launch of its Design for Security Badge Program for students and professionals, developed in partnership with Intel.

Several other partners will be making announcements at RSA this week, so I encourage everyone at the conference to stop by our booth (#3435 in North Hall) to learn more.

Intel is committed to helping secure the digital world, beginning with a secure foundation at the silicon level. Together with our industry partners - and in line with our security first pledge - we will continue to work tirelessly to safeguard our customers and their data.
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12 Comments on Intel Announces iGPU-accelerated Threat Detection Technology

#1
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
Trying to save face after the meltdown/spectre by selling another product...
Posted on Reply
#2
Nephilim666
Trying to sell us greater levels of telemetry as the best action to avoid security flaws they created.
Posted on Reply
#3
Space Lynx
Astronaut
Nephilim666Trying to sell us greater levels of telemetry as the best action to avoid security flaws they created.
As someone who was born in Indiana, it is nice to see Purdue getting some nice $$$$ though. :D I like Purdue the most.
Posted on Reply
#4
Vayra86
Of course this is PR, but why are we salty about a faster threat scan on a part of the CPU we barely utilize and is just sitting there anyway? This is coming to existing CPUs Skylake onwards...its not like you 'need to get this'.
Posted on Reply
#5
Vya Domus
An actual use for those millions of iGPUs out there that are mostly useless.
Posted on Reply
#6
csgabe
This probably works only if you use the internal gpu only.
Posted on Reply
#7
LemmingOverlord
Vya DomusAn actual use for those millions of iGPUs out there that are mostly useless.
Yeah, I've always wandered (and searched) for other uses for the iGPU, but it hardly has any... even a simple virus scan should be able to be accelerated by the iGPU, much like it is done with discrete GPUs these days.

It does show Intel is stupidly out of ideas. You have this (theoretically) powerful piece of silicon in your system that you don't use, yet Intel has never had any use for it... (apart from driving additional screens and the capabilities of a specific iteration of Quick Sync Video - because every generation of Intel silicon changes the Quick Sync profile).

I am sure there could be some basic discrete GPU functionality which could be accelerated by the on-die nature of the iGPU, in combination with the dGPU... a bit like RAMdisks and SSDs can be used to improve HDD performance...
Posted on Reply
#8
TheinsanegamerN
Oh good, so intel can find all the ways they screwed up their latest spectre patches even faster....
Vayra86Of course this is PR, but why are we salty about a faster threat scan on a part of the CPU we barely utilize and is just sitting there anyway? This is coming to existing CPUs Skylake onwards...its not like you 'need to get this'.
Because intel should be pouring everything into fixing meltdown and spectre, not wasting time on trivial things like "iGPU Threat Detection" when their spetre/meltdown patches are way behind schedule, broken, ece.
Posted on Reply
#9
Hood
So this is only implemented on upcoming new CPUs, not existing hardware?
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#10
Vayra86
TheinsanegamerNOh good, so intel can find all the ways they screwed up their latest spectre patches even faster....


Because intel should be pouring everything into fixing meltdown and spectre, not wasting time on trivial things like "iGPU Threat Detection" when their spetre/meltdown patches are way behind schedule, broken, ece.
One thing doesn't exclude the other though...

@Hood Skylake onwards is what I read.
Posted on Reply
#11
Hood
Vayra86@Hood Skylake onwards is what I read.
Wouldn't that require a BIOS update, since Intel announced this only yersterday? Skylake was 2 generations ago.
Posted on Reply
#12
Vayra86
HoodWouldn't that require a BIOS update, since Intel announced this only yersterday? Skylake was 2 generations ago.
I suppose? My care factor is too low to dive into this, but it could come along with another round of Spectre mitigations
Posted on Reply
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