We have redesigned parts of the processor to introduce new levels of protection through partitioning that will protect against both Variants 2 and 3. It’s one of the easiest ways to stay protected. While Variant 1 will continue to be addressed via software mitigations, we are making changes to our hardware design to further address the other two. He goes on to explain: With these updates now available, I encourage everyone to make sure they are always keeping their systems up-to-date. First, we have now released microcode updates for 100 percent of Intel products launched in the past five years that require protection against the side-channel method vulnerabilities discovered by Google. Today, I want to provide several updates that show continued progress to fulfill that pledge. This was the impetus for the Security-First Pledge I penned in January. The security landscape is constantly evolving and we know that there will always be new threats. In an editorial blog post this week, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced: In addressing the vulnerabilities reported by Google Project Zero earlier this year, Intel and the technology industry have faced a significant challenge. Thousands of people across the industry have worked tirelessly to make sure we delivered on our collective priority: protecting customers and their data. But there is still work to do. ![]() You can see why people have been getting confused - there have been fourteen updates on this issue alone in Intel's Press Centre. There then followed what can only be described as an inconsistent position where, as this excellent article from The Register details, Intel had flipped between claiming there's nothing to worry about, to saying there will be a performance hit, to finally admitting that the issue has prompted a redesign of their chips. Spectre hijacks this look-ahead function, which then allows it to modify the main process. This is a kind of "look -ahead" that scouts out all the possible processing routes ahead of the main process happening. The Spectre vulnerability is so named as it exploits the Speculative Execution feature on modern chips. What's The Issue?Īt the beginning of this year, it was reported that Intel, AMD and ARM chips all had security flaws that allowed them to be vulnerable to the Spectre and Meltdown exploits and that the fix would likely have a performance impact on existing hardware. ![]() ![]() If you're at all concerned about the implications of the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities on Intel (and other manufacturers) chips, then this news may give you a reason to delay your planned hardware upgrade.
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