Major Intel CPU Security Flaw Is More Serious Than First Thought

[froggyboy604]

Last week, news broke of a serious security flaw in Intel business chipsets dating back seven years. The flaw, which doesn’t affect consumer hardware, concerned products with Intel’s Active Management Technology, Intel’s Small Business Technology, and Intel Standard Manageability. Intel’s description of the flaw is as follows:

There is an escalation of privilege vulnerability in Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT), Intel® Standard Manageability (ISM), and Intel® Small Business Technology versions firmware versions 6.x, 7.x, 8.x 9.x, 10.x, 11.0, 11.5, and 11.6 that can allow an unprivileged attacker to gain control of the manageability features provided by these products. This vulnerability does not exist on Intel-based consumer PCs with consumer firmware, Intel servers utilizing Intel® Server Platform Services (Intel® SPS), or Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 and Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 workstations utilizing Intel® SPS firmware.

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I think it can be a good idea to use a computer with an AMD, VIA, mobile/ARM, and non-Intel CPU chip for sensitive tasks like online banking, shopping, and other tasks which require a secure and private system.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

You realize that anything non Intel could have just as major issues with it as well right?

 

[froggyboy604]

You realize that anything non Intel could have just as major issues with it as well right?

I agree, there is a chance that non-Intel CPU can have major issues as well. But, using Intel CPUs for very sensitive data and computers like a computer that host a database of a large company like a bank, web hosting company, or private e-mail server can be a bad idea since the Intel AMT issue is made public, so hackers could exploit this problem if they know how to access these system through the internet, or offline by breaking into the building which houses these important computers.

Hackers and virus makers will be more likely to spend more of their time making hacks and viruses to attack Intel CPUs to exploit the Intel AMT security problem. A lot of hackers are probably already planning to hack as many Intel PCs as possible before the user, Intel, motherboard companies, Windows, antivirus makers, and other OS, hardware, and security software makers can release software updates for the user to install to hopefully block most of the virus infection attempts to hack computers with Intel AMT CPU vulnerabilities.

AMD, VIA, Mobile/ARM, and MIPS CPU maybe safer because more hackers are currently spending more of their time trying to hack into Intel CPUs with this security problem. Intel run on most of the world's desktop PC, laptops, Windows tablets, servers, and some super computers.

AMD, VIA, and MIPS CPU have a smaller marketshare where it may not be worth the hackers time to hack into fewer computers which may not contain as much useful data because AMD is mostly popular among cheap computers, and cheap gaming computers and laptops. AMD marketshare is also declining were there are fewer users who use it because they switch to Intel and Mobile/ARM CPU based devices. VIA CPU are mostly use for very cheap computers like media player computer. MIPS is not a popular CPU brand for most computers.