I’ve been doing technology support long enough to tell you that many of the problems that people experience with computers are self-inflicted. I even have clients who truly believe they have a little black cloud hanging over them every time they sit down in front of a computer, and having witnessed their track records first-hand, I make sure to keep my tech poncho handy. It’s hard to deny empirical data that clearly indicates some folks might be better keeping their distance from expensive or important technology. Today, however, some of my tech-kryptonite clients can hold their heads high because…guess what?! In the case of a large number of computers built with Intel CPU’s the technology problems plaguing those PCs might have been the hardware and not them!
“I’ll need an old priest and a young priest.“
Unfortunately for Intel, exorcising this particular demon won’t be nearly so simple (or cinematic). The tech manufacturer most widely known for making CPUs used in just about every desktop computer, laptop and server on this planet has recently admitted that they created, manufactured and sold two entire generations of CPUs with a flaw that basically causes them to commit electrical seppuku by requesting more voltage than they can safely handle. Intel’s Raptor Lake 13th and 14th generation CPUs have been installed in PCs since late 2022 all the way through today, and no one’s quite sure how many PC’s might be affected because it’s very difficult to determine if your repeated crashing is from a fried CPU or you are just one of my “stormy” tech friends.
After strongly denying this for several weeks, Intel finally came clean and admitted to the manufacturing defect, and after some prodding from the industry, also committed to extending warranties on retail CPU’s (ie. sold in boxes for installation into computers by system integrators, hobbyists and MSP’s like yours truly) by 2 more years. And after a little more prodding from their biggest customers, extended that same 2-year grace to OEM computers as well – these would be the ones you buy from Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. Additionally, Intel is prepping a firmware update for mid-August that will supposedly rectify this nasty bug, but sadly, the fix won’t do anything for CPUs that have already lobotomized themselves. For that, you’ll need to seek a warranty replacement. As someone who has gone through that particular process more times than should be allowed by the Geneva Conventions, make sure you get your “waiting boots” on and keep your favorite stress toy handy. The next few months are going to be a hoot. And by “hoot” I mean nothing at all resembling such a thing. Thanks, Intel.
New week, new punching bag: this time, Intel returns to the spotlight with yet another flaw in its CPUs, up to and including the most recent 9th generation processors as well as going back as far as ones produced in 2008. This week has been absolutely bananas for technology issues so I’m going to keep the literary gymnastics to a minimum. Truth be told, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the technical details of this latest exploit, but here’s a simplified explanation of what I understand so far.
What this means for you: apply updates and stay patched!
Two independent groups of researchers as well as Intel themselves have been quietly working on identifying a new, serious exploit in how Intel CPUs operate. Unlike typical security flaws that can be patched with software, vulnerabilities like this one, dubbed RIDL, Fallout, or MDS (depending on who you talk to) are a result of how the CPU was designed to operate. This new flaw, along side the two previously announced Spectre (2017) and Fallout (2018) vulnerabilities, fall into a class of exploits that are based on a core design of Intel architecture originally built to help computers run faster. Put as simply, predictive processing guesses what the CPU is going to be asked to do next and have the necessary code or data already loaded into nearby caches. Previous exploits looked at the predictions, and the latest basically looks at the guesses that turned out to be wrong or unused. Each discarded guess only contains a few bytes of data, but given a focused attack repeated thousands or millions of times, the leaked data can eventually be amassed into a significant security breach.
Interestingly enough, Intel has known about this particular flaw for an undisclosed amount of time, and has already been working with major industry players like Microsoft, Google, Apple and the usual Windows PC manufacturers to patch or mitigate the vulnerability, which may or may not already be applied to your equipment. At this point, unless you really like reading technical bulletins like this one, I’d recommend paying close attention to update notifications from your computer’s manufacturer as well as applying security patches to your various devices, regardless of their business or personal focus. As with the previous two vulnerabilities, Intel and manufacturers are being cagey about pointing out exactly which updates might be addressing this particular issue, or even if they’ve already been fixed (as many manufacturers will assert), and Intel itself is downplaying the severity of the flaw, despite differing opinions from the independent research groups. Intel discounts the severity based upon the relative sophistication required to exploit the flaw, but researchers rightly point out that though the flaw may be hard to exploit, the data it exposes is highly sensitive and previously thought completely secure.