Chip Design Flaw Not Limited to Intel, Researchers Say

Original story: Over the next few weeks there's a very good chance your PC or laptop will take a significant performance hit, possibly up to 30 percent slower. Worse is the fact you can do nothing about it, as the slowdown is a side effect of fixing a major design flaw in Intel processors.

If your computer uses an Intel processor produced in the last decade, it probably contains the design flaw. Intel has not yet released a list of affected chips; it's keeping the details under lock and key until operating system patches have been released for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

As The Register reports, the flaw is thought to allow user programs to gain access to protected kernel memory areas. The kernel is the core of an operating system and controls anything and everything running on it. It is therefore extremely important the kernel memory remains secure due to the sensitive information it can contain.

Although nobody outside of Intel knows the specifics, the flaw is thought to be so serious it could allow any software, even a bit of JavaScript running in a web browser, to access and steal data stored in the protected kernel memory. So that includes your passwords, login keys, or any files that happen to be cached when unauthorized access occurs.

The vulnerability alone is bad enough, but the fix makes the situation even worse. Closing the security hole will result in a significant performance hit to each system. Current estimates suggest that hit could be as high as 30 percent. You read that right, once your system is patched it may run 30 percent slower for certain tasks.