Intel CEO: We will make our chips secure
Since cybersecurity researchers uncovered two massive microprocessor flaws that leave nearly every computing device in the world vulnerable to hackers, Intel has borne the biggest brunt of criticism in both the press and the stock market.
A week after researchers led by Google unveiled the Meltdown and Spectre bugs,
Intel CEO
Brian Krzanich penned a short letter online last Thursday pledging urgency, security and transparency from the company and from the larger industry.
“Following announcements of the Google Project Zero security exploits last week, Intel has continued to work closely with our partners with the shared goal of restoring confidence in the security of our customers’ data as quickly as possible,” wrote Krzanich.
Meltdown and Spectre have been in chips made by Intel — the world’s largest chipmaker — and other major suppliers dating as far back as 1995. The flaws allow hackers to steal data from the memory of running apps, including password managers, browsers and emails in different fashions.
Hardware and cloud computing giants such as Apple, Google and Amazon rushed to issue patches to mitigate both bugs — but cybersecurity experts say these are software Band-aids to a fixed hardware problem that may never fully be erased.
Krzanich said Intel’s priorities are: “customer-first urgency,” “transparent and timely communications” and “ongoing security assurances.” Intel planned to have updates to patch the bugs for at least 90 percent of Intel CPUs by yesterday and 100 percent by the end of this month, he wrote.
“We encourage our industry partners to continue to support these practices,” wrote Krzanich. “There are important roles for everyone: Timely adoption of software and firmware patches by consumers and system manufacturers is critical. Transparent and timely sharing of performance data by hardware and software developers is essential to rapid progress.”