Chrome version 67 activates site isolation as a protection standard against Spectrum



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Google has been working for a while to protect the Chrome browser against security vulnerabilities such as Spectrum. The company did this by implementing a function called Site Isolation.

The site isolation changes the way the browser renders the code to the actual content. The new function divides the rendering process into different tasks by using out-of-process iframes. Rendering pages this way makes it more difficult for speculative runtime vulnerabilities, such as Spectrum, to hurt. The disadvantage of this new rendering mode is the increase in the use of memory. According to Charlie Reis part of the team behind the Chrome browser, the memory can increase between 10 and 13 percent compared to the old rendering technique.


A visual representation of the new rendering process.

According to Reis, Chrome has always had a multi-process architecture. This means that different tabs have used different rendering processes, some even being passed from one tab to the other when navigating to another site. Unfortunately, this way of working was still not enough to foil Specter. The new way to render was already available from version 63 of Chrome, but still in an experimental phase. Google does not rule out that browsers can still be misused with a similar attack. The company is therefore always trying to improve security against this type of attack.

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