The massive cyber-vulnerability revealed this week in Intel’s chips goes beyond the firm and affects other companies’ chips as well, according to Intel.
The chip flaw leaves many computer processors created over the last 10 years, according to some reports, open to potential attacks from malware.
The issue is particularly difficult to resolve because most cybersecurity vulnerabilities happen on software, which is easier to fix than hardware flaws.
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Intel said in a statement on Wednesday that it had planned to disclose the flaw next week and notes that the bug is not unique to its products, as previously reported.
The firm said that it chose to bump its disclosure date to Wednesday following “inaccurate media reports.”
“Intel and other technology companies have been made aware of new security research describing software analysis methods that, when used for malicious purposes, have the potential to improperly gather sensitive data from computing devices that are operating as designed,” the company said. “Intel believes these exploits do not have the potential to corrupt, modify or delete data.”
Previous reports said that forthcoming patches would likely cause significant computer slowdowns, but Intel also disputed this in its statement, saying that any speed issues would be dependent on a specific user’s workload and would not be significant for the average computer user.
Intel says it will release firmware updates to mitigate the vulnerability next week and is working with rivals like AMD to create solutions for the entire chipmaking industry.