Worldwide tech firms are rushing to fix a security bug in all chips made by Intel, AMD, and ARM. Amongst them, those three companies make the processor chips (CPU) for about 90% of all computers worldwide and 80% of all mobile phones.
Whenever a security issue presents itself in computers or chips for that matter, companies normally work together in secret to fix the flaw before any hacker can take advantage of it. But in this case, it looks like someone jumped the gun to the normal protocol as the ‘serious security flaws’ were so big that the industry is rushing to fix it.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We translated Intel's crap attempt to spin its way out of CPU security bug PR nightmare <a href="https://t.co/74fQJ86sLl">https://t.co/74fQJ86sLl</a></p>— The Register (@TheRegister) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRegister/status/948747844030222336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Without wanting to get too specific, the industry experts claim that bugs have been found in the processor chips that could allow hackers to steal personal data from computer systems operating with those chips.
For anyone wanting to read the details of what computer experts had to say about Intel’s official explanation of the problem, we suggest reading: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/04/intels_spin_the_registers_annotations/
The problem seems to stem from a security flaw originating from Intel, which by itself provides some 80% of the world’s operating chips. Given that the information about its security flaw spread before Intel could provide a fix, this leaves the US behemoth company in a very uncomfortable situation.
Google, Apple, and Microsoft, the computer and mobile phone manufacturers operating those chips, have all given their customers information about possible patches already.
Microsoft, using Intel chips, claims a security update would be rolled out on Thursday whilst stating that it had “no information suggesting any compromised data.”
Apple claimed it was working on updates which would be rolled out before the end of the week.
Google published a blog post for its customers detailing what they need to do.
Lastly, Intel, clearly working with its legal department already, admitted that "many types of computing devices, with many different vendors' processors and operating systems, are susceptible to these exploits."
Source:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
Thanks Intel !