“As word of the massive security flaw in computer processing units spread yesterday, companies responded to reassure customers and explain the steps they are taking to deliver software patches to address the issues,” Chris O’Brien reports for VentureBeat.
“But the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT, has issued a statement saying there is only one way to fix the vulnerability: replace the CPU,” O’Brien reports. “CERT is based at Carnegie Mellon University and is officially sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communications. ‘The underlying vulnerability is primarily caused by CPU architecture design choices,’ CERT researchers wrote. ‘Fully removing the vulnerability requires replacing vulnerable CPU hardware.'”
O’Brien reports, “They also advise users to apply the various software patches but note that this will only ‘mitigate the underlying hardware vulnerability.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, who’s in the market for a computer of any sort – desktop or mobile – containing such flawed CPUs?
Crickets, at the very least, from the smart consumers.
When flawed, insecure, and therefore defective products are sold to consumers, recalls and/or recompense are the proper responses.
Intel et al. are going to try to sell us on a software bandaid instead of really fixing the problem properly.
Let the richly-deserved class action lawsuits begin!
SEE ALSO:
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