Hardware Meltdown, Spectre Fixes Coming in 2018, Intel Says
Intel is now planning to come out with new chips that will not be affected by the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities, and it plans to do so within the year. In a conference call with investors, Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich explained how they plan to address the issues this 2018 with new hardware.
The company has been faced with the huge problem of coming out with a working fix for the Spectre and Meltdown security holes that were publicly disclosed last year, and judging from their current progress, a software-based solution will not provide a universal fix.
The company has earlier advised OEMs and users to hold off on the new patch that Intel issues themselves after systems went down after rebooting.
"Security is a top priority for Intel, foundational to our products, and it's critical to the expanse of our data-centric strategy," Krzanich explained to investors, adding that they are, at least for the short term, working on "high-quality mitigations" to protect clients from the security issues found on Intel's chips.
"We're working to create silicon-based changes to future products, that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year," the Intel chief promised.
The commitment has been a welcome word from the company leadership, but what IT managers need in the meantime is something that will help them plan for these changes as Intel works on bringing them about, as PC World pointed out.
The first question is when these hardware fixes will be coming out in 2018. This could come as soon as the upcoming Coffee Lake-S line of chips, as Pat Moorhead of AMD and Moor Insights predicts. It could also come as late as the release of the later "Cascade Lake-X" or "Cannon Lake" chips, which are expected to come out just before the year ends.
