New Intel patches promise immunity to Meltdown and Spectre attacks
The world and its dog have been following the rather scary story of the Meltdown and Spectre CPU exploits. As a quick recap, a security vulnerability in most modern CPUs allows a standard unprivileged program to extract sensitive information in memory, like passwords and encryption keys. Intel CPUs are particularly affected since the Meltdown vulnerability is apparently specific to them. The company's now issued a statement saying it's "made significant progress" in deploying software patches and firmware updates to partners that will make its chips "immune" to the exploits.
Intel says that it already has patches in place for "the majority of processor products introduced within the past five years." The company's own list of affected CPUs extends much farther back than that, so it's ...