“A massive flaw in the way computer processors have been designed over the last two decades could leave just about every computer, mobile device, and server vulnerable to hacking, a group of security researchers announced yesterday, Jan. 3,” Mike Murphy reports for Quartz. “Intel chips dating back to 1995 are potentially affected by one flaw, nicknamed Meltdown by the researchers, while another, called Spectre, could potentially affect chips from all manufacturers. News of the issues sent Intel’s stock tumbling yesterday, and at the time of publishing, it was down about 3% from yesterday’s closing price.”
“But Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, for one, sold the majority of his company stock in November, several months after the company was alerted to the flaws,” Murphy reports. “As is common in cybersecurity research, the companies potentially affected by the flaws were alerted long before the public, in the hopes of fixing as many problems as possible before hackers could discover and exploit the issues. With the Spectre flaw, however, it appears that there is no simple fix, and some are suggesting that the only way to completely solve the problem will be to recall and replace the millions of affected computer chips.”
MacDailyNews Note: See: CERT: Only way to fix Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities is to replace CPU
“Krzanich sold off all but 250,000 of his Intel shares—the minimum number he’s required to hold per his employee agreement—in November,” Murphy reports. “Intel confirmed that the researchers first alerted Intel to the flaws in June. A spokesperson said Krzanich’s sale was ‘unrelated.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Intel also has a bridge for sale, if you’re interested.
SEE ALSO:
CERT: Only way to fix Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities is to replace CPU – January 4, 2018
Security flaws put nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel, AMD and ARM at risk – January 4, 2018
Apple has already partially implemented fix in macOS for ‘KPTI’ Intel CPU security flaw – January 3, 2018
Intel’s massive chip flaw could hit Mac where it hurts – January 3, 2018
well, he won’t need all that money in prison once i imagine he is convicted of insider trading
Doubtful. If he gets anything at all, it’d be an easy stay at a white collar resort facility and the money’s already in Zurich, so forget about that, too.
Insider trading by a CEO?
Don’t be hating on the job creators, Right?
Wonder if the flaw was designed in. They were and are designed in Israel. Would not put it beyond Mossad.
http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Tech/Intel-launches-next-gen-processors-developed-and-designed-in-Israel-477358
Nice try at blaming the Jews, but these flaws go way back in time, many years before Intel had anything going on in Israel.
Should be easy to disprove. Didn’t Intel’s Israeli R&D center first come up with the Celeron after the Pentium line started to stall? Was that after the mid-90s?
I did not blame Jews, I blamed Israel. Not the same thing by any standard.
The US has intentionally weakened security protocols by contributions from NIST that were written by the NSA to give back doors. There is real concern regarding Russian Security Software and Chinese Chipsets and data security. Are you so unwilling to believe that Mossad might not take similar actions? All nations do things in their self interest and Intel Chip design has largely been in Israel for a very long time.
Then there is the whole Jonathan Pollard thing and Stewart Nozette, and Ben-Ami Kadish and other Americans who spied for Israel. Don’t be so stupid.
BTW- Intel in Israel goes back to 1974. This flaw is dated to the mid 1990’s
When in doubt or, in this case, totally clueless: Blame the Jews!
To quote Maxine Waters: “You be raycisssssst! RAYCISSSSSST!“
Didn’t blame Jews, asked if Israel could have planted the flaw. Our government has done this with standards proposed by NIST.
One can question Israel without “blaming Jews”. Stop trying to quash thought by playing a Trump Card.
Sorry,
DavGreg – blaming Israel IS blaming the Jews. Own it.
Sorry, saying that blaming Israel is blaming the Jews is the same as saying that if you didn’t vote for Hillary, you must be sexist, thereby ignoring all the Jill Stein supporters. Doesn’t work.
No it is not. About as Many Jewish people live outside Israel as in and and the population of the country is less than 75% Jewish and in decline.
The standard canard used against any critique of the Likud Government in Israel is to try to label it as hate speech or religiously biased. That is simply not the case and is a less than truthful representation of the facts.
My question was simply based upon state interest- not politics or faith. Get over ii and deal with facts rather than innuendos.
“Don’t be hating on the job creators” … i hate that term, as if we should all be thankful to them !!!
Yeah, I’m not thankful to them, because I know they’re not the real job creators. The real job creators are the customers in the marketplace who create demand for products and services and spend their income, which in turn results in an increased need for people to provide those products and services. Hence why we should be focusing on how to increase the wealth of the lower and middle classes to make for a robust market that works for all, not just allowing the select few at the top to hoard it all.
You’ve got your back asswards Eric. You don’t have demand without a product/service and it takes having$$, finding investors, or both. For that reason. it doesn’t start with the middle class unless you’re a “make work”/cart before the horse numb-scull.
You, Jimmy and Rosco need to get together and start the Pretend School of Economics. Bernie Sanders would be a perfect mentor or president.
Feel free to gaslight all you want, as you conservatives happen to have some sort of fetish for doing. All the new products in the world do nothing without someone to buy them, and in order to buy those products, they need money. If the rich get all the wealth, then all they do is hoard it – they don’t bother creating something new. It’s the customer that creates the demand, and that’s what keeps the market going.
Think about Eric, wealthy don’t get to be wealthy by holding on to their $$, otherwise there’s no way in hell they’d become wealthy. One has to “use” earnings…invest/risk to make $$. Money doesn’t grow out of thin air…someone has to risk their assets in order for them to increase their holdings. Let’s imagine, for your sake, they all hoarded their $$…like kept it in the bank. What do the bankers do…loan that money to others that at least have credit worthiness to invest/risk per their own ideas/products. We didn’t become the richest country in the world b/c the rich hoarded their money…do ya think?
Of course you have to have people to buy products, but even the absurdity of your presumption shows the truth…the product came before the-buy. Who made it…the wealthy/smart/savvy. Who employed people to make it = the wealth/smart/savvy. We aren’t talking about the place, or value of the consumer, but were talking about who’s “driving the bus”, or the chicken/egg argument. Another basic point you fail to acknowledge…where do the consumers get their $$? Answer = the wealthy/smart/savvy, via a job executing the wealthy’s idea/product creations. Remember, the wealthy aren’t inherently bad people, nor is their success/gain. You won’t hear that from Bernie, so it’ll be a tough road to understanding that point (even though he’s a millionaire himself).
oh Dave…come on, buddy…you got your panties in a jihad.
I asked a question.
Sometimes things are not planted but discovered and kept secret for future use. Our government has done such things before. The British have as well.
“Krzanich is due to be the first keynote speaker at next week’s CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.”
So they haven’t rescinded his invitation yet?
What a loser Krzanich is for dumping his stock. If virtually ALL major brands of chip in current use are vulnerable, then companies have an incentive to replace hardware and they may as well stick with Intel; hence Intel should see a significant net increase in sales in the near future. If he had kept his stock, Krzanich’s profit would be double what it actually will be.
That’s assuming he fully knew about the situation before he had to schedule the stock sell. It’s likely he did not.
Most executive stock sales are planned well in advance. It would need to be proved that he decided to sell at short notice and the process was initiated after learning about the issue.
There are some significant details missing from the MDN summary and article itself…
1) “It was made pursuant to a pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1) with an automated sale schedule,”
2) The stock price has actually gone up slightly since his stock sale and today.
3) It’s unclear as to whether Krzanich has always maintained a minimum stock holding and his sale in November was aligned with that.
4) Likewise it’s unclear what exactly Krzanich knew about the situation. It’s conceivable he knew only that there was an undisclosed exploit, which happens often, and patches were being developed, which is a common occurrence. This only really became a story at all when it became known that the patches may affect performance and may require per threat patches or CPU replacement. It’s unclear if this knowledge was known by Krzanich before the stock sale (let alone before the scheduling of it).
5) It’s a bit misleading to imply speculation on “a recall and replace the millions of affected computer chips” at cost to Intel. This “flaw” goes back to 1995 and affects chips across every major vendor to different degrees. While this sucks, there’s no evidence that the chips don’t perform as advertised or according to their specs, even if there is a security exploit. Thus Intel, and other vendors, may find themselves not only not liable, but in a position to sell more chips in areas where customers are willing to pay for a prioritization of security.
There’s no conspiracy here, Krzanich just needed the money to buy a new iPhone X. 😉