While Intel and AMD have been going out at each other by introducing new chipsets in all sections of the markets, including making chipsets at an affordable range as well as for the premium segment. While AMD will exchange a bit more blows to Intel from time to time, Intel still manages to come out on top in general with an established consumer base.
However, Intel might be blowing a punch to themselves with the latest development that has surfaced. Design integrity in their processors has been blessed with a security flaw. Worst, the flaw was discovered by researchers at Bitdefender as well as by a team of academics from universities around the world.
The flaw which has been nicknamed as Load Value Injection or LVI represents a whole new class of “theoretical attacks” that can be launched against CPU’s based on Intel. While Intel has already rolled out a decisive patch to fend off the attacks, the chipmaker further assured that they plan to deploy fixes on the fly if any such situation is to arise.
The attacks in question can allow potential hackers to read app data from inside the CPU while it remains in a transient state. Furthermore, it could also allow to intentionally inject code and have it executed as a normal operation giving the attacker more control over the device.
At the time, only Intel CPU’s can be found infected by the LVI flaw in real-world tests, however, researchers have not ruled out CPUs from AMD and ARM brands. While launching an attack, the LVI flaw will depend on a malicious code on a device which means gaining access to the LAN.
While the threat is real, researches have concluded that an LVI could be extremely difficult for the attackers to launch. Further studies also show the GPU structural design to be flawed to the same extent of the attack, however, with little proof a solid conclusion is still not drawn.