All Intel processors affected by memory leaking vulnerability

Rock-kun

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And the fixes for it are expected to introduce a performance penalty of up to 50%.

As reported by Phoronix on the Linux side of things:

Phoronix said:
Over the past day you've likely heard lots of hysteria about a yet-to-be-fully-disclosed vulnerability that appears to affect at least several generations of Intel CPUs and affects not only Linux but also Windows and macOS. The Intel CPU issue comes down to leaking information about the kernel memory to user-space, but the full scope isn't public yet until the bug's embargo, but it's expected to be a doozy in the data center / cloud deployments...*snip*...The software fix for this Intel CPU problem for Linux/Windows/macOS is expected to introduce a performance penalty and reports are anywhere from 5% to 30%.

Of course, with Linux being open source, fixes have already been committed and mainlined into the upcoming kernel 4.15. The article claims a performance penalty of up to 30%, but Phoronix's benchmark on the kernel shows more than 50% I/O penalty on a CoffeeLake:

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It will be interesting to see when Windows and macOS will receive their respective kernel patches and the extent of the performance penalty introduced there.

Article source: https://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25767

Also interesting to note: the kernel developers are treating all x86 processors as being affected:
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commach

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Continue using my laptop/PC without the patch even if available.

No concern for me at all.
 

singupingu

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And the point is?
*still using Intel laptop and desktop*

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Ark Law

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And the point is?
*still using Intel laptop and desktop*

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Update, windows buggy. Update, system instability. Update, driver clash. Update, BSOD. Update, performance drop. Update, end up have to rollback

So best don't update :s13:

MT7ZKEa.jpg
 

kawaii_boy

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Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign.

A fundamental design flaw in Intel's processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug.

Programmers are scrambling to overhaul the open-source Linux kernel's virtual memory system. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to publicly introduce the necessary changes to its Windows operating system in an upcoming Patch Tuesday: these changes were seeded to beta testers running fast-ring Windows Insider builds in November and December.

Crucially, these updates to both Linux and Windows will incur a performance hit on Intel products. The effects are still being benchmarked, however we're looking at a ballpark figure of five to 30 per cent slow down, depending on the task and the processor model.


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
 

haylui

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So long is Intel then everyone is relief and life goes on..
 

haylui

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Not even using anti virus lol

Memory leaks issue not gonna affect normal usage anyway

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I read news saying this is more affecting clouds and server since the flaw can allow user A to read information/data belong to user B...
 

singupingu

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Sound like good news for hackers lmao

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chong

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The notes say AMD is not affected? No?

AMD CPUs do not have the bug, but the Linux patch has been coded to treat all x86 CPUs as buggy.

Unconfirmed news also reported the same assumption in the beta Windows patch which was pushed to fast ring Win10 users, where AMD EPYC supposedly took a 49% performance hit.
 
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wwenze

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In before conspiracy to hurt AMD performance

Only affects heavy I/O operations anyway.
 

watzup_ken

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So long story short, despite 2x increase in core count in 2017, fix in 2018 will negate improvements completely.
 
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