Fix will compromise overall CPU performance
2018 is not going to be a good start for Intel, as a recently discovered bug presents a “fundamental design flaw” to all of Intel’s chips. The flaw affects practically ALL of Intel’s chips from the past decade and includes the ones currently in the market.
The bug in question involves a security vulnerability in the processor’s protected kernel memory—an area in the processor that stores sensitive information such as passwords and how an operating system uses a computer’s core components. The vulnerability basically means that a hacker can create malicious programs to easily access this sensitive part of a processor.
To make matters worse, the side CPU bug is so hard to fix, it requires a major fix from the Operating System, regardless if it is Windows, Mac, or Linux. This patch, in lay man’s terms, will isolate the kernel memory from user processes through a Kernel Page Table Isolation (KPTI) feature.
A catch with this fix is that by making adjustments to how a CPU processes things, performance will be compromised. Initial benchmark results showing Linux systems before and after the fix show a notable decline in performance of around 15%.
The figures may vary, however, depending on several factors such as OS and processor. For the lucky few who are using AMD processors, this bug should not bother them. An email sent to the Linux Kernel mailing list explained that AMD processors do security checks to avoid problems like what Intel is facing right now.
Even though AMD processors are not affected, there’s word that Linux will be issuing a security patch as well, though AMD recommends not to enable the patch. As for Microsoft and Apple, we will still have to wait for their plans following the recently-exposed bug.
Source: The Register
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