From PC Mag: Over the next few weeks there's a very good chance your PC or laptop is going to take a significant performance hit. The worst case scenario being it will get 30 percent slower. Worse than that is the fact you can do nothing about it as the slow down is a side effect of fixing a major design flaw in Intel processors.
If your computer uses an Intel processor produced in the last decade, then it probably contains the design flaw. I can't tell you exactly what the flaw is yet because Intel is keeping the details under lock and key until operating system patches have been released. Those patches will have to be made for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
As The Register reports, the flaw is thought to allow user programs to gain access to protected kernel memory areas. The kernel is the core of an operating system which controls anything and everything running on a system. It is therefore extremely important the kernel memory remains secure due to the sensitive information it can contain.
Although nobody outside of Intel knows the specifics, the flaw is thought to be so serious it could allow any software, even a bit of JavaScript running in a web browser, to access and steal data stored in the protected kernel memory. So that includes your passwords, login keys, or any files that happen to be cached when unauthorized access occurs.
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