Intel launched Coffee Lake knowing it was vulnerable to Meltdown

Posted on Friday, January 05 2018 @ 11:24 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
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Spectre and Meltdown remain the big news of the week and attention is turning to some actions Intel made after it learned about these vulnerabilities. Investors are dismayed that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich sold all the Intel stock he could sell after the company was informed about these vulnerabilities and now consumers are starting to wonder why Intel knowingly shipped a new processor generation with such a serious vulnerability.

As reported by TechPowerUp, Intel was fully aware that its new product was vulnerable to three vulnerabilities when it launched the 8th Gen Core "Coffee Lake" CPUs on September 25, 2017:
Intel's engineers would have had sufficient time to understand the severity of the vulnerability, as "Coffee Lake" is essentially the same micro-architecture as "Kaby Lake" and "Skylake." As one security researcher puts it, this could affect Intel's liability when 8th generation Core processor customers decide on a class-action lawsuit. As if that wasn't worse, "Skylake" and later micro-architectures could require micro-code updates in addition to OS kernel patches to work around the vulnerabilities. The three micro-architectures are expected to face a performance-hit, despite Intel extracting colorful statements from its main cloud-computing customers that performance isn't affected "in the real-world."
So far, Intel is in damage control mode but it remains to be seen whether the firm's clients will turn a blind eye.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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