Intel Discloses New 'Variant 4' Spectre-Like Vulnerability

[ChrisCW11]

Hey, don’t sweat this new security flaw. Do what I’ve done and use a secure, hack proof, reliable and energy efficient “processor”.....

If you drop it, you loose all your current work and it is easy for a hacker to get your data. There is no such thing as reliable in processing.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

So, just in time, finding these flaws is great marketing! Bravo Intel!

 

[cube]

Just 'some'?

A full Spectre fix is very complicated.

 

[PlainviewX]

It seems like all processors ever made are vulnerable by something.

 

[Arcus]

Always amusing how nerds make such a huge attention play with their naming of bugs, flaws, exploits etc and graphics that go along with them. DRAMA! DRAMA! Couldn't they just be grown ups? Don't talk down to people as if they're in kindergarten, along with your cutesey, overly-rounded, totally redundant logos of ghosts etc; people aren't (all) morons.

Go back to the_donald please.

 

[cube]

It seems like all processors ever made are vulnerable by something.

There are many CPUs that are not affected by Spectre or Meltdown.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Just for the sake of discussion-

We know apple wants to make their own chips. But can they build chips that can handle Pro level loads?

You're asking this crowd??? Not only will about 80% of the replies be shouting ABSOLUTELY YES but with a little time, Apple-made chips will also give users the power to walk on water and raise the dead... maybe even allow 2 speakers to play "stereo-like" sound.

And this particular problem is not limited only to non-Apple chips. In other words, this line of news is not some covert catalyst for Apple to switch away from Intel to- say- their A-series chips in Macs... in spite of how much some of "us" seem to think we want to go through a CPU migration again (probably sans Rosetta to smooth over the pain, as it somewhat did the last time).

A migration from Intel to A-series in Macs simply makes Macs more profitable for Apple (which does seem to be more and more important to us consumers based on posts that key around that so that Apple can "win" about any debate, market share discussion, richest company ranking, etc) AND gives Apple control of when they can roll out updates to Macs. The latter has real merit EXCEPT we should think about the consequences: if Apple seems to struggle to roll out new Macs when someone else is doing all of the work creating the central brains, do we really believe they can bring even more focus to Macs to also focus on regularly evolving their own brains?

Some of us do go well out of our way to try to redirect blame for 500-1000+ day old Macs waiting for upgrades towards Intel, ignoring that there have been many upgrades to Intel chips over 2-4+ years. I'm not very confident that if Apple went their own way with A-series Macs that Apple would have the motivation to upgrade Macs any faster. I think Apple is pretty much a phone company now that also makes some other stuff... a modern day Nokia or Ericsson with some side hobbies. I wish that it didn't seem like that... but actions always speak louder than words/spin (be that corporate or fandom).

To quote the great Elvis of Memphis: "A little less conversation... a little more action"

 

[Ulfric]

AMD is also definitely affected by Spectre Variant 2. A "Spectre Variant 3a" doesn't really exist, as "Google Project Zero Variant 3" (as these security vulnerabilities are formally called) is in fact "Meltdown".

Only Bulldozer line ups were affected, Ryzen(Summit ridge) were untouched.

Also there is a difference between Meltdown or Spectre V3a

Meltdown is CVE-2017-5754 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-5754

Spectre V3a is CVE-2018-3640 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2018-3640

Also there are some differences between attacks like Spectre & Meltdown & Speculative Store Buffer Bypass which we are calling Spectre V4.

 

[gmarm]

It's sad that new Macbooks that will be announced soon will _also_ suffer from these vulnerabilities. The patch will be on the software side which will mean reduced performance. I wonder whether Apple is going to mention that.

 

[curtvaughan]

Intel says implementing the fix on the fixed CPU's will cause performance issues. They just caused headaches for marketing.

That's the irony of this. These vulnerabilities are apparently related to the "look ahead" and predictive aspects of the chips upon which their current processing advantages over earlier architectures mostly depend. Mitigating the vulnerabilities also mitigates the speed advantages.

 

[Janichsan]

Only Bulldozer line ups were affected, Ryzen(Summit ridge) were untouched.

Still AMD chips.

Also there is a difference between Meltdown or Spectre V3

I never said GPZ V3 and GPZ V3a were exactly the same. The "a" in GPZ V3a is there for a reason.

However, only GPZ V1, V2, and V4 are Spectre. That GPZ V3a gets called "Spectre" on many news sites is incorrect terminology.

 

[groadyho]

Makes me wonder if we even had it to begin with. Or just the illusion we had privacy.

Apple definitely give you an illusion. Atleast Google is up front about it.
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Makes me wonder if we even had it to begin with. Or just the illusion we had privacy.

 

[ghostface147]

8th gen Core processors will protect against SOME flaws. That's crappy. It should protect against, at least, most flaws.

 

[MacBH928]

I demand update for older macs and OS X. We paid for these devices and they were shipped vulnerable from the factory. I don't think it will hurt them to patch any OS that is still being used. Me and others are still using Mavericks on one of our computers or daily driver.

I believe Microsoft supported XP for 10 years and its only been 4 years for mavericks.
Its ok to not add/support new feature in older OSes but to not update them with security patches and protect them form viruses is a bit unethical especially when I don't believe it will cost the near $1T company much.

 

[BBCWatcher]

It’s really time for Apple to switch to AMD.... Not to mention, the MacBooks might get a decent integrated GPU.

Apple might be interested in an arrangement that lets Apple create custom silicon that includes one or more X86 sections, as per this rumor. For example, imagine a future Apple product containing a single processor chip that marries Apple's A12 with a couple decent or better performing X86 cores, and with at least some degree of integration for GPUs, cache, secure enclave, and other features. And then let's call it something like the Apple XA12 with a possible XA12X variant. And it's inside a future iPhone, but it's an iPhone that can do everything a Mac mini can -- literally a Mac (and iPhone) in your pocket.

It can be done; the technology is not particularly difficult. Apple has enough clout and capital to get that sort of custom silicon made, but it hasn't happened yet and might never happen. Most technically possible products aren't the right products.

And/or, AMD currently has a market cap below $13 billion, and a circa $18 billion buyout would be pocket change to Apple. That might be an interesting acquisition. Or maybe Broadcom wants to grab AMD? It'd be a much smaller acquisition than its attempted Qualcomm buy.

 

[Ulfric]

And/or, AMD currently has a market cap below $13 billion, and a circa $18 billion buyout would be pocket change to Apple. That might be an interesting acquisition. Or maybe Broadcom wants to grab AMD? It'd be a much smaller acquisition than its attempted Qualcomm buy.

AMD's x86 & other IP licenses from Intel are non-transferable to an acquirer.

License states the agreement will terminate upon a change of control of either party, keeping AMD suitors at bay.

 

[bernuli]

Totally. I was forced to upgrade from 10.8.5 and wasted a full week and a fair amount of cash sorting out USB issues due to new Apple USB architecture.

Buying a brand new mac would not have helped either.

Everything was fine and dandy until I updated to current macOS due to security concerns.

I demand update for older macs and OS X. We paid for these devices and they were shipped vulnerable from the factory. I don't think it will hurt them to patch any OS that is still being used. Me and others are still using Mavericks on one of our computers or daily driver.

I believe Microsoft supported XP for 10 years and its only been 4 years for mavericks.
Its ok to not add/support new feature in older OSes but to not update them with security patches and protect them form viruses is a bit unethical especially when I don't believe it will cost the near $1T company much.

 

[DBDukes]

These flaws don't bother me nearly as much as the undiscovered flaws that might actually have already been discovered by bad actors.

 

[itguy06]

Does anyone know how AMD compare to Intel on power usage? that could be one area Intel still have and advantage and that would be a big deal on mobile devices.

Better or equal on power usage with equal or better performance. AMD chips are being used in many Windows laptops with great battery life.

 

[simonmet]

Considering Apple is planning to use their own ARM chips in all Macbooks in the long run, i doubt they will temporally switch to AMD. Too much hassle.

Isn’t this just speculation? They haven’t confirmed anything yet have they?

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Uh, 99% of the people who own affected products have no idea what Meltdown or Spectre are, or how a processor works to begin with. I think it's just fine to develop a way of explaining the exploits that meets the level of understanding that said users have.

And 99.99% of users shouldn't care about any of these vulnerabilities.

 

[catportal]

Hint: unless you are an enterprise customer using a public cloud, it has no impact on your PC. The existing software vulnerabilities completely out weight the need to use this or any related exploit to obtain data across processes.

Also, speculative execution isn't a bad thing, it's literally the only thing that pushes up CPU perf these days.

 

[SRLMJ23]

I have no clue if this would work, but Apple could overclock the processors just enough to offset the performance issues that the patches causes in Macs. I have no clue what the magic number would be, but max they could probably do is a few hundred MHz (without the fans cranking non-stop.)

Stupid to think this though, because I know Apple will never do this!

 

[0924487]

Hey, don’t sweat this new security flaw. Do what I’ve done and use a secure, hack proof, reliable and energy efficient “processor”.....

I only know how to use the ones that only have one row on the top bar... That version made more sense to me in kindergarten.

 

[chucker23n1]

Just for the sake of discussion-

We know apple wants to make their own chips. But can they build chips that can handle Pro level loads?

They've been making their own chips for years.

Do they want to move the Mac to them? We don't know at all. All we have is rumors with very little substance.
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It seems like all processors ever made are vulnerable by something.

Sure. Virtually any non-trivial piece of software has bugs, so virtually any non-trivial piece of security-relevant software has vulnerabilities.