Research Fuels Continuous Improvement

Security Means You Never Stop Looking

Attacks are growing more complex and threats continue to evolve. It’s crucial that you have a way to keep ahead.

Intel employs dedicated teams of security research experts who are always examining ways to make our products more secure.

From researching known attacks to identifying what’s next, before it impacts you, Intel is always looking to break what we build to make our technology even stronger.

   

Offensive Research

Researchers investigate products for known and emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks, including physical attacks. The focus is system-wide targets from transistor level to hardware design, system firmware, drivers, operating systems, and application software.

 

    

Defensive Research

Threat landscape and intelligence detection of new  vulnerabilities and exploits that require systemic mitigations,  and evaluating response effectiveness. The focus includes industry-wide edge hardware and software mitigations for emerging and future vulnerabilities.

 

    

Culture and Capabilities

Focused on getting our architects, developers, designers, and validators to think like a hacker, through tools, training, and immersive mentoring including hands-on research.

 

Examples of Research Focus

  • Novel mitigation methodologies for transient execution (side channel) attacks
  • CPU microcode security threat research
  • Cryptographic hardware mitigations for side channel and fault injection resiliency
  • Vulnerability and mitigation research for telemetry leakage
  • Trusted Execution Engine security
  • Graphics hardware and kernel mode drivers
  • Security of AI accelerator solutions
  • Thermal and voltage attacks
  • Virtualization technology security
  • FPGA security
  • 5G end-to-end solutions
  • System firmware technologies
  • Pathfinding and research on hardware security analysis tools

Inside the Lab Where Intel Tries to Hack Its Own Chips

This WIRED article details the importance of research against physical attacks and why iSTARE’s proactive approach to reverse engineering weaknesses is vital to developing the next generation of attacks and defenses.

Academic Research & Community Outreach


Intel invests in programs to engage the global security research community and better understand researcher perspectives. Programs include sponsored research, awards and recognition, community outreach, and mentorship/internship opportunities with the common goal to continually strengthen the global security research community that’s critical to accelerate the pace of innovation.

Technology Designed for Defense in Depth

System-level security that starts in hardware, activated by software. Intel delivers technology that improves foundational security, data and workload protection, and software reliability.