“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