Intel’s CEO cashed in $24 million (£18 million) worth of stock in the company, months after it was informed of a massive ‘design flaw’ in its chips.
Brian Krzanich took the decision to divest the maximum stake in the firm possible just four months after Intel found out about the security bug.
The issues, known as Metldown and Spectre, could affect billions of gadgets worldwide that are powered by the company’s CPUs.
They only came to public attention in recent days but, according to reports, the microprocessor manufacturer was informed in June last year.
Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich, pictured, cashed in a whopping $24 million (£18 million) worth of stock in the company, just four months after it was informed of a massive ‘design flaw’ in its chips
INTEL’S TWO SECURITY VULNERABILITIES
Two massive security flaws could put billions of people worldwide at risk of being hacked, in a shocking lapse affecting nearly all devices.
Meltdown and Spectre could let cyber criminals steal passwords and other data from nearly every gadget containing chips from Intel, AMD and Arm, thanks to ‘design flaws’ in their manufacture.
The bugs affect desktops, laptops, servers, smartphones and tablets, as well as smart devices like baby monitors powered by processors from these manufacturers.
Patches have been created by a number of device manufacturers to try and plug the huge security holes, but fixing the underlying issue will be extremely difficult.
The sale drew attention when it was originally announced, as it left Krzanich with just 250,000 stock in his firm, the minimum required by the terms of his employment.
The timing is likely to raise even more eyebrows after revelations in recent days about the scale of the problems facing Intel, as well as how much the CEO knew when the sale went through.
Intel says the sale was planned in advance as part of a standard deal and has no connection to the recently disclosed chip flaw, which affects processors built over the past decade.
In a statement to Business Insider UK, a representative for Intel said: ‘Brian’s sale is unrelated.
‘He continues to hold shares in-line with corporate guidelines.’
Executives at high powered firms often have plans in place to automatically sell part of their stocks or shares, precisely to avoid charges of trading on insider knowledge.
Krzanich sold 245,743 shares of stock he owned outright, as well as a further 644,135 shares that were part of rights specified in his contract, under such an arrangement.
But, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, this plan was only put in place on October 30.
The issues, known as Metldown and Spectre, could affect billions of gadgets worldwide that are powered by the company’s CPUs. They only came to public attention in recent days but, according to reports, the microprocessor manufacturer was informed in June last year
INDUSTRY’S BIGGEST PLAYERS
Intel, AMD and Arm are three of the biggest names in the world of computer processors.
Intel
Intel, the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer, started life producing memory chips, including the first metal oxide semiconductor in 1969.
The firm’s introduction of the Pentium microprocessor in 1993 helped usher in a personal computer revolution during that decade.
Major companies, including Dell and HP, were early adopters of Intel’s chips in their PCs.
Today, most laptop and desktops in the world are powered by an Intel CPU, including rival Apple Macs, which dropped its proprietary chips in favour of the industry leader’s in 2005.
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, better known as AMD, is Intel’s only significant rival in the PC processor marketplace.
Alongside Nvidia, it is also one of two dominant players in the manufacture of graphics processing units, used in PC video gaming.
Both Microsoft and Sony chose AMD processors over Intel’s to power their latest consoles, the Xbox One and PS4.
AMD processors are also the preferred choice for many custom and home built PCs, particularly among the gaming community.
Arm
Arm processors have conquered the world of smart devices, thanks to their stripped back design.
British company Arm Holdings develops the design of the chips, which is then licensed to other firms.
Processors that use the company’s RISC architecture require fewer transistors than larger personal computer chips.
This makes them cheaper, use less power and give off less heat, making them ideal in smaller, more portable gadgets.
This ranges from smartphones to internet connected baby monitors.
This is well after Intel learned of the problems with its x86-64 range of chips, which Business Insider UK reports happened in June.
Security researchers at Google’s Project Zero computer security analysis team, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered the two flaws.
Meltdown and Spectre could let cyber criminals steal passwords and other data from nearly every gadget containing chips from Intel, AMD and Arm, thanks to ‘design flaws’ in their manufacture.
The bugs affect desktops, laptops, servers, smartphones and tablets, as well as smart devices like baby monitors powered by processors from these firms.
Patches have been created by a number of device manufacturers to try and plug the huge security holes, but fixing the underlying issue will be extremely difficult.
In an interview with CNBC yesterday, Krzanich said: ‘We’ve found no instances of anybody actually executing this exploit.
‘Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it´ll vary from product to product.’
However, clips on social media claim to show computer security experts using the exploit.
Michael Schwarz, who has a PhD in information security, posted on Twitter ‘Using #Meltdown to steal passwords in real time’, along with a GIF animation of the procedure.
Researchers say Apple and Microsoft have patches ready for users for desktop computers affected by Meltdown.
Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered Meltdown, called it ‘probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found’ in an interview with Reuters.
Gruss said Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches.
Spectre, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term, he said.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
Google – Patch coming tomorrow
On January 5, Google is issuing a security update to protect Android phones.
Google-branded phones should automatically download the update and you need to just install it. With Pixel and Pixel 2 the update will automatically install too.
Some Android phone manufacturers are slow to patch, so you should contact them to make sure they update it as soon as possible.
The patch for Chrome will be installed on January 23 and some Chromebooks had a mitigation in its OS 63, released in December, write Wired.
If don’t want to wait until then an experimental feature from Google called Site Isolation can help in the meantime. This feature makes it harder for malicious websites to access data from other websites you are looking at, writes Cnet.
To use this feature on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS or Android copy and paste chrome://flags/#enable-site-per-process into the URL in Chrome. Click ‘Strict Site Isolation’ and then press ‘Enable’.
Save your work and then press ‘Relaunch now’.
A few Chromebooks are not expected to get the patch because they are too old. Here is a full list (look for ‘no’ in the right-hand column).
According to Google no other products are affected by these vulnerabilities.
Microsoft – Windows 10 patch available, older versions to come
There is already a patch available for Windows 10 which will automatically be applied.
For older operating systems a patch will be available next week. According to the company, Azure infrastructure is updated.
Apple – No public comment
There has been no public comment from the company. One researcher has suggested MacOS 10.13.2 has mitigation for the flaw.
Linux – Patch available
The system has a patch.
Reports suggest it can slow down Linux-based systems by as much as 17 per cent. Users can opt out if they do not want it.
Amazon – Cloud services patched
The company says its web services have been updated.
Major cloud services aimed at business customers, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, say they have already patched most of their services
Consumers should check with their device maker and operating system provider for security updates and install them as soon as possible.
