Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Hi everybody.
AMD and Intel are both now facing lawsuits following the announcement of what has become known as the Spectre and Meltdown CPU security leakage. Intel are facing three class litigations in regard to its actions or non actions dependent on how anyone looks at the situation. However although having only one action against it at present, AMD undoubtedly faces in that the most serious single action by far.

AMD stands accused of "artificially inflating" its stock price by not making public the CPU design flaw on initially knowing of the problem. The “problem” the tech world now knows as Spectre was known to AMD and its management many months before Google reported the problem to the worlds media according to the class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of AMDs investors.

Actions instigated in the northern district of California court state, "As a result of defendants' wrongful acts and omissions, the precipitous decline in the market value of the company's common shares, plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages."

The above comes in the wake of similar class-action suits brought by intel disgruntled stockholders. However, the Intel actions at present does not accuse Intel of deliberately inflating its share price by suppressing information to the public following it having knowledge of the chip vulnerabilities. However that situation could very much change as the litigation’s progress beyond the above initial stages.

For AMD and its directors the action if successful could be extremely serious for them and AMD into the future.

Bill
 
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Will it ever end? With the IoT just 'round the corner, things will probably get more interesting before we get to the predicted future where computers will just work as promised. Meanwhile, waiting for TANE to be blamed.
 
It gets worse for Intel, now the reboot issue apparently affects all Intel chips up to Kabylake, meanwhile things improve for AMD as Microsoft have released a cumulative update to fix the AMD non booting issue that they caused with the original patch, if you can revert to a previous build. Intel are now working on a microcode fix for the microcode fix, this could go on for some time yet. Interesting times ahead I suspect.
 
The major problem for AMD is not sorting the issues within its chips but sorting the problems it faces within the courts. When the CPU design flaw was brought to public notice at the beginning of January, AMD initially reacted by denying its chips where susceptible to the flaw. In the foregoing the senior management of AMD maintained that position for approximately twenty four hours before conclusive evidence emerged to disprove the claim that AMD products were not vulnerable in the same way as Intel or ARM CPUs

Twenty four hours may not seem like a prolonged period to cause damage to any strong public company. However in that time on the stock market strong trading took place in all companies where investors felt the profitability could be affected by the problem going forward. AMD shares rose strongly on the back of the statement by AMD that their products were not affected, only to crash a day later as it became clear that the statement was completely false and misleading.

In the above would be the basis of the court class action stating that AMD deliberately inflated their stock market value knowingly by false statement. The foregoing could not be more serious for AMD and its directors as many large investment fund managers had sold short on stocks such as Intel and bought into AMD stocks believing that they were a safe haven. However, that belief was shattered a day later when the true situation was brought to light.

Many millions of dollar losses are now involved in the litigation and the very future of AMD and its directors in all likelihood now hangs on the outcome of this class action.

Interesting times indeed
Bill
 
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Gigabyte and AsRock have apparently released BIOS updates. That will be a job for me this weekend.

The Aussie Government Cyber-crime watchdog is warning of spammers offering links to bogus patches.
 
Hi Everybody.
For those of us who are not "total computer geeks" Gary Sims from Android Authority gives in the below YouTube video a presentation on the problems being caused by the "Meltdown" and "spectre" security threat.

I would emphasize that what the presenter states here is in regard to all CPUs, whether that be on mobile, PC or Mac, etc. As can be seen Gary Simms gives the most simplistic analysis of the problem as is possible, so I believe it is well worth a viewing for all of us who feel the problem is very complicated.

As also as can be understood by viewing the video the problem is not about to go away quickly

Video begins here:-
https://youtu.be/0nOJnDFb9tQ


Bill
 
Worth a look, saw it from a link on Ten Forums about an half an hour ago.

Meanwhile until Intel Arm AMD and the Operating System creators can demonstrate they actually know what they are doing and provide evidence that whatever fixes are going to work, I would avoid any microcode patches and just browse carefully. Spectre is now in the Wild. Security program providers are aware and have definitions to stop the exploits known so far getting downloaded, so make sure your AV etc is kept bang up to date.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/meltdown-spectre-malware-found-fortinet,36439.html
 
Malc, thanks. So the current situation, eg. for my i7-6700, is that there is a Windows Update, but no update for the CPU itself, which remains vulnerable? And standard AV (eg. Kaspersky) will not protect against malware that exploits this vulnerability?

If so, worrying times!

Paul :confused:
 
AV's should protect against those exploits that have been found, trouble is there will probably be a stream of them appearing, the longer this mess goes on without some sort of proper hardware fix.
 
I think in summation there are now 119 detected bits of Malware that make use of these exploits. So far Microsoft's patches and Intel's patches have reduced the risk but essentially unless you replace the physical CPU with an updated one and they should be available later in 2018 or 2019 there is still a risk.

Aren't computers fun. I was thinking of upgrading my system but at the moment I think I'll hold off a year or so.

Cheerio John
 
if you don't do silly things, and use the computer as intended, you should be fine. Look how long it has been so far...
 
if you don't do silly things, and use the computer as intended, you should be fine. Look how long it has been so far...

Yes so far, however as they have published the proof of concept code, it's even on GitHub! It's a different ball game now, those of us who know how to use a PC and the internet properly will more than likely avoid anything, the problem will be with those who suffer from ignore warnings, click everything and download from dodgy sites disease. ;o)
 
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