Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerabilities Land Intel With 32 Lawsuits
Computer chip maker Intel is now facing 32 lawsuits from disgruntled consumers over the massive Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities.
The lawsuits were confirmed by Intel through its annual financial report to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission which was uploaded to the company's official website on Feb. 16.
In the document, Intel recognized that there were 30 active class action claims and two securities action lawsuits filed due to the Spectre and Meltdown flaws as of last week. The securities action lawsuits were reportedly filed by people who had acquired Intel stocks from July 27, 2017 to Jan. 4 of this year.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Intel reported that the class action plaintiffs "generally claim to have been harmed by Intel's actions and/or omissions in connection with the security vulnerabilities."
Meanwhile, the securities action lawsuits said that the company and some of its executives "violated securities laws by making statements about Intel's products and internal controls that were revealed to be false or misleading by the disclosure of the security vulnerabilities."
Intel added that while it would not be surprised if "additional lawsuits and claims" were filed, it contested the allegations and said it was ready to fight these "vigorously" in court.
The security vulnerabilities were first made public on Jan. 3 but Intel claimed that it was initially notified by Google researchers about the issues back in June 2017.
The revelation about Spectre and Meltdown filled headlines for weeks at the beginning of the year for several reasons. The researchers who found these issues deemed its severity was mainly because the flaw was in the hardware and not in a program that could have been relatively easy to fix through a system update.
The Meltdown vulnerability renders the security boundaries -- typically one of the processing chips' tasks -- useless and makes it easier for hackers to launch more complicated damage. If an attack makes its way to the system, using Spectre can help cyber crooks compromise even error-free programs and lead to sensitive information leaking from the targeted computer.
Software companies have since issued security updates to help their programs ward off illegal activities that may come through with the help of Spectre and Meltdown.
