Intel has become a defendant in a lawsuit-it is accused of inaction regarding the Downfall gap in its chips that allow you to steal passwords. The plaintiffs claim that she knew about it since 2018, but did not eliminate it until third-party information security experts found it in the summer of 2023.
Intel knew everything
Intel for five years deliberately released "leaky" Core processors of various generations that contained the Downfall vulnerability, according to a class-action lawsuit against it. According to the TechSpot portal, the plaintiffs have no doubt that Intel knew about the existence of the breach at least since 2018, but did not take any actions to eliminate it until it became known to the world community.
As reported by CNews, the news about this" hole " in Intel chips thundered in August 2023. Downfall, if used correctly, gives hackers access to user passwords, encryption keys, personal correspondence and other confidential information. The breach has received the classification number CVE-2022-40982 and the critical status, and it can be found in Intel processors of the Skylake (sub-series Skylake, Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake, Amber Lake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake and Comet Lake) and Tiger Lake families.
Notably, starting with the Alder Lake generation, when Intel switched to hybrid processors, Downfall disappeared somewhere. Intel has never explained this phenomenon.
What is Intel accused of?
It is a class action lawsuit filed against Intel. It says that the company has known about Downfall since the summer of 2018, when developers found a flaw in the AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions, which is the basis of Downfall. As it turned out, these instructions are vulnerable to the so-called "side-channel attack", which gives hackers the opportunity to steal confidential user information. And these are not only individuals, but also companies, even with state participation.
According to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose, California, Intel chose to keep Downfall information secret and sell vulnerable products. The exact number of" leaky " processors that Intel managed to produce and sell is not disclosed. TechSpot writes about the billions of chips that have spread around the world. Apparently, Intel was simply not up to the Downfall problems – around that time, the company was busy fixing equally serious vulnerabilities codenamed Spectre and Meltdown in the architecture of its processors, which spoiled its reputation, and probably decided to ignore the Downfall vulnerability.
Nothing helps
At the time of the release of the material, Intel had a patch ready to eliminate Downfall in all processors where it was detected. But with this update, too, everything is not as smooth as we would like – its integration instantly reduces the performance of Intel processors in many tasks, whether it's surfing the Internet, rendering videos or playing video games. In some cases, the drawdown reaches 50%, that is, we are already talking about overpaying for a chip that does not produce the declared performance values.
Thus, Intel put people around the world in front of a very difficult choice – either daily risk becoming a victim of a hacker who exploited Downfall, or install a patch and get almost twice as slow processor at the output. In the class action, a large part of the complaint is given to this – users who subscribe to it claim a drop in performance when running modern games, including the latest Starfield, as well as when working in the Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher utilities.
For Intel, things could get worse from here on out
At the time of the material's release, Intel refused to comment even on the very fact of the existence of such a claim, as well as the statement contained in it that it had deliberately released dangerous processors for years. It is not yet clear how this will affect its reputation, but AMD, Intel's main competitor in the x86 processor market, can take advantage of what is happening.
AMD is already reaping the rewards of both its persistence and Intel's mistakes. So, according to the results of the third quarter of 2023, its profit increased by 1000%, that is, 10 times, against the background of the second quarter of 2023. AMD's net profit for the reporting period was $299 million against Intel's $297 million, although the latter is ahead of its competitor in revenue - $14.2 billion against $5.8 billion. But this only means that the ratio of net profit to revenue at AMD is significantly better.
Intel knew everything
Intel for five years deliberately released "leaky" Core processors of various generations that contained the Downfall vulnerability, according to a class-action lawsuit against it. According to the TechSpot portal, the plaintiffs have no doubt that Intel knew about the existence of the breach at least since 2018, but did not take any actions to eliminate it until it became known to the world community.
As reported by CNews, the news about this" hole " in Intel chips thundered in August 2023. Downfall, if used correctly, gives hackers access to user passwords, encryption keys, personal correspondence and other confidential information. The breach has received the classification number CVE-2022-40982 and the critical status, and it can be found in Intel processors of the Skylake (sub-series Skylake, Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake, Amber Lake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake and Comet Lake) and Tiger Lake families.
Notably, starting with the Alder Lake generation, when Intel switched to hybrid processors, Downfall disappeared somewhere. Intel has never explained this phenomenon.
What is Intel accused of?
It is a class action lawsuit filed against Intel. It says that the company has known about Downfall since the summer of 2018, when developers found a flaw in the AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions, which is the basis of Downfall. As it turned out, these instructions are vulnerable to the so-called "side-channel attack", which gives hackers the opportunity to steal confidential user information. And these are not only individuals, but also companies, even with state participation.
According to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose, California, Intel chose to keep Downfall information secret and sell vulnerable products. The exact number of" leaky " processors that Intel managed to produce and sell is not disclosed. TechSpot writes about the billions of chips that have spread around the world. Apparently, Intel was simply not up to the Downfall problems – around that time, the company was busy fixing equally serious vulnerabilities codenamed Spectre and Meltdown in the architecture of its processors, which spoiled its reputation, and probably decided to ignore the Downfall vulnerability.
Nothing helps
At the time of the release of the material, Intel had a patch ready to eliminate Downfall in all processors where it was detected. But with this update, too, everything is not as smooth as we would like – its integration instantly reduces the performance of Intel processors in many tasks, whether it's surfing the Internet, rendering videos or playing video games. In some cases, the drawdown reaches 50%, that is, we are already talking about overpaying for a chip that does not produce the declared performance values.
Thus, Intel put people around the world in front of a very difficult choice – either daily risk becoming a victim of a hacker who exploited Downfall, or install a patch and get almost twice as slow processor at the output. In the class action, a large part of the complaint is given to this – users who subscribe to it claim a drop in performance when running modern games, including the latest Starfield, as well as when working in the Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher utilities.
For Intel, things could get worse from here on out
At the time of the material's release, Intel refused to comment even on the very fact of the existence of such a claim, as well as the statement contained in it that it had deliberately released dangerous processors for years. It is not yet clear how this will affect its reputation, but AMD, Intel's main competitor in the x86 processor market, can take advantage of what is happening.
AMD is already reaping the rewards of both its persistence and Intel's mistakes. So, according to the results of the third quarter of 2023, its profit increased by 1000%, that is, 10 times, against the background of the second quarter of 2023. AMD's net profit for the reporting period was $299 million against Intel's $297 million, although the latter is ahead of its competitor in revenue - $14.2 billion against $5.8 billion. But this only means that the ratio of net profit to revenue at AMD is significantly better.
