The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a guidance urging businesses to act on an Intel Corp. alert addressing a security flaw in its computer chips, which are used in eight types of processors in business computers sold by major manufacturers, according to Reuters.
Security experts are unsure how difficult it would be for hackers to exploit the chip's vulnerabilities and launch attacks, but because the affected chips are widely used, they took the disclosure seriously.
"These vulnerabilities affect essentially every business computer and server with an Intel processor released in the last two years," said Jay Little, a security engineer with cyber consulting firm Trail of Bits. So far, Intel does not know of any cases where hackers have exploited the vulnerability in a cyberattack.
Intel provided software patches to fix the issues, though it is the responsibility of the manufacturers to distribute patches to computer users.
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