Processor Security Flaw Keeps Morphing

Last week news was leaked of a problem with Intel processors built since 1995.  The problem – they could be hacked to possibly leak important stuff like all of your passwords.

It then came out that Microsoft and the Linux community were building patches and they would be released soon.

Apple said that they released a patch for the flaw in mid December.  Wait.  No.  Only for part of the flaw.  New patch now.

But the bug also impacts AMD processors – at least some of them.

And ARM processors, like on your cell phone.

Oh, yeah, today Apple released a patch for iPhones.

And now Microsoft is halting the distribution of the patch on computers that have AMD processors in them because AMD gave them bad technical specs and if you install the patch on one of those computers they turn into a really, really, expensive brick.

The good news is that people think this flaw, which has been around for 22 years (and likely already exploited by state sponsored hackers), is relatively hard to exploit .  Until some hacker posts sample code on the Internet.

The industry is not used to such an all encompassing problem.  I can’t recall this EVER happening in my career.  Cross chip and cross operating system – that is a once in a lifetime event.

Also, there are patches being released to applications like Safari and Firefox and many others.

There is no simple answer, but it is getting sorted out.  Give it a week, maybe two tops and I think it will settle down.  There are a LOT of moving parts here.

Information for this post came from Reuters and Betanews.

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