Intel CPUs have a major security flaw, upcoming software fixes may slow down the PCs

It just has been the 3rd day of 2018 and a newer security flaw detected in designing of Intel CPUs has forced the people to say WTF!

A new major security flaw in Intel processors’ design has been detected that is claimed to be existing for 10 years. But users need not worry because a fix is coming on Linux as well as Windows machines later this month which will fix the flaw but will require a major redesign of the Operating System which will drop the overall performance of the OS.

All the detailed information won’t be revealed publically until the flaw is fixed but the report has some interesting insights that talks about what is actually broken.

The reports point towards a flaw that will allow some malicious programs to access the areas of an operating system that they are not supposed to, which is the kernel memory. The kernel is a very powerful and high authority in the architecture of an Operating System with the highest possible privileges to read or write files or instructions. If the CPU hardware is not able to enforce these privileges this flaw will allow other normal programs to access the restricted region. This includes normal natively coded programs as well as content on the web that uses Javascript or any other interactional script running on a webpage.

In order to fix this, the developers would have to separate the Kernal Memory from the user processor using Kernal Page Table Isolation. This could slow down the overall performance of the Computer.

As the experts say, there is a chance of 5%-30% decline of performance of the machine after the patches are applied but that may vary on what generation CPU or what model of CPU is being fixed.

The machines running AMD CPUs are not affected at all. This flaw only affects the machines running Intel CPUs. We know that Linux, Windows and even MacOS devices are affected. Linux and Windows patches are reported to be rolled out soon and eventually we hope the Apple would roll out a fix soon too.

Source: The Register