Intel is redesigning its hardware to address some of the threats from the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities found in most of its chips.
CEO Brian Krzanich made the announcement in a security update yesterday.
“We have now released microcode updates for 100% of Intel products launched in the past five years that require protection against the side-channel method vulnerabilities discovered by Google,” he reports.
“With these updates now available, I encourage everyone to make sure they are always keeping their systems up-to-date. It’s one of the easiest ways to stay protected.
“While Variant 1 will continue to be addressed via software mitigations, we are making changes to our hardware design to further address the other two,” Krzanich adds. “We have redesigned parts of the processor to introduce new levels of protection through partitioning that will protect against both Variants 2 and 3.
“Think of this partitioning as additional ‘protective walls’ between applications and user privilege levels to create an obstacle for bad actors.”
The changes will be incorporated in the next-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Cascade Lake) as well as 8th Generation Intel Core processors expected to ship in the second half of 2018.
“As we bring these new products to market, ensuring that they deliver the performance improvements people expect from us is critical,” Krzanich comments.