It is difficult to say how much time it will take to patch the holes in AMD processors. CTS-Labs claimed that AMD did not respond to their claims yet. Like in Intel’s case, it can take months to fix the issues end even then no hardware changes can be done to the existing devices, so some threats would still loom over the users.
Market analysts report that AMD processors dropped the price significantly. However, it is not known for sure whether it was caused by the unfortunate news or the company is simply getting ready for Easter sales. In some cases, the price reduction is up to £150 per high-end CPU unit.
The report that we were investigating for the last week has already received some criticism. Firstly, industry standards require at least 90-day period before flaws like these ones are made public – CTS-Labs published the data in less than a day after notifying AMD. This move potentially puts users under a serious threat, as the manufacturer had no time to react to it – good companies concerned with security do not do that. In addition, CTS-Labs hired a PR-company to deal with the press. The company created a website with an eloquent name AMDflaws.com, which casts even more shade on this matter.
Nevertheless, Linus Torvalds, a principal developer of Linux, confirmed that the problems are real. However, the whole story appears to him as a stock manipulations hoax. Some of the specified issues in AMD processors require nearly a physical access or a root password to be successfully executed. Under conditions as such no device is safe.
We believe that majority of the threats listed by CTS-Labs are somewhat far-fetched and can be prevented by taking reasonable cyber-safety measures. Londoners are sure to find good advice in our IT support service.