Laptops And Desktops With These Intel Processors Have Serious Security Flaws
Even the latest generation of Intel processors are not spared.
By John Lim — 28 Nov 2017, 05:36 PM
Intel, the company that makes processors for most laptops and desktops, has recently revealed that quite a number of its products are vulnerable to remote hacking
First discovered by cybersecurity company Positive Technologies Research, the security flaw could see hackers run malicious software, get privileged access, and take over computers.
Engadget pointed out that the vulnerabilities can be traced back to security loopholes found in Intel Management Engine, Intel Server Platform Service, or Intel Trusted Execution Engines. All of these are essential for Intel processors to function properly.
On its official website, Intel said hackers could take over a PC remotely or cause system crashes.
The list of affected processors is quite extensive
The affected processors, as confirmed by Intel:
- 6th, 7th & 8th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1200 v5 & v6 Product Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor W Family
- Intel® Atom® C3000 Processor Family
- Apollo Lake Intel® Atom Processor E3900 series
- Apollo Lake Intel® Pentium™
- Celeron™ N and J series Processors
The Fortune 500 company has released a detection tool to find out if your PC is exposed to the breach
The tool will highlight what hardware and software your system is running on and whether you may be vulnerable to this newly discovered flaw.
Intel has revealed to The Star Online that it has not received any reports of computers being attacked under the flaw yet.
What should you do if your PC is affected?
Intel advised PC users to check their systems and install the security update if they needed to.
"We worked with equipment manufacturers on firmware and software updates addressing these vulnerabilities, and these updates are available now," the company told Fortune.
For convenience, the company has listed links to fixes provided by PC makers on its support page. Some of the affected brands include Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba.