There is a serious security flaw in billions of Intel CPUs that can let attackers steal confidential data like passwords and encryption keys. Firmware updates can fix it, but at a potential significant performance loss.
I just skimmed through the article and it seems like this vulnerability is only really meaningful on multi-user systems. It allows one user to access memory dedicated to other users, letting them read stuff they shouldn’t. I would expect that most consumer gaming computers are single-user machines, or only have user accounts for trusted family members and whatnot, so if this mitigation causes too much of a performance hit I expect it won’t be a big risk to turn it off for those particular computers.
this vulnerability is only really meaningful on multi-user systems
Well, that says it all. CPU manufacturers have no incentive at all to secure the computations of multiple users on a single CPU (or cores on the same die)… why would they? They make more cash if everyone has to buy their own complete unit, and they can outsource security issues to ‘the network’ or ‘the cloud’…
Years ago when I was in University this would have been a deathblow to the entire product line, as multi-user systems were the norm. Students logged into the same machines to do their assignments, employees logged into the same company servers for daily tasks.
I guess that isn’t such a thing any more. But wow, what a sh*tshow modern CPU architecture has become, if concern for performance has completely overridden proper process isolation and security. We can’t even trust that a few different users on the same machine can be separated properly due to the design of the CPU itself?
Processor manufacturers target their devices and sales towards cloud computing so they have a huge incentive to avoid having issues like these. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
I just skimmed through the article and it seems like this vulnerability is only really meaningful on multi-user systems. It allows one user to access memory dedicated to other users, letting them read stuff they shouldn’t. I would expect that most consumer gaming computers are single-user machines, or only have user accounts for trusted family members and whatnot, so if this mitigation causes too much of a performance hit I expect it won’t be a big risk to turn it off for those particular computers.
Well, that says it all. CPU manufacturers have no incentive at all to secure the computations of multiple users on a single CPU (or cores on the same die)… why would they? They make more cash if everyone has to buy their own complete unit, and they can outsource security issues to ‘the network’ or ‘the cloud’…
Years ago when I was in University this would have been a deathblow to the entire product line, as multi-user systems were the norm. Students logged into the same machines to do their assignments, employees logged into the same company servers for daily tasks.
I guess that isn’t such a thing any more. But wow, what a sh*tshow modern CPU architecture has become, if concern for performance has completely overridden proper process isolation and security. We can’t even trust that a few different users on the same machine can be separated properly due to the design of the CPU itself?
Processor manufacturers target their devices and sales towards cloud computing so they have a huge incentive to avoid having issues like these. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise.