Microsoft says security patches slowing down PCs, servers
According to Bloomberg news on January 10, 2018, 1:00 AM GMT+8, Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday that software patches released to guard against microchip security threats slowed down some personal computers and servers, with systems running on older Intel Corp processors seeing a noticeable decrease in performance.
Microsoft’s statement suggests the slowdowns could be more substantial than Intel previously indicated. While the CEO of Intel Brian Krzanich said on Monday that the problem may be more pervasive than first thought. He didn’t discuss the degree of impact but only mention that some machines would be more affected than others.
Shares in Intel, which reiterated on Tuesday that it saw no sign of significant slowdown in computers, fell 2.5 percent taking the loss since the issue surfaced last week to about 7 percent or around $15 billion in market value. While AMD shares have gained nearly 20 percent in the last week as investors speculated that the chipmaker could wrest market share from Intel, whose chips were most exposed to the security flaws.
Security researchers disclosed the flaws on January 3 that affected nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel, AMD and ARM Holdings, owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.
The increasingly dire assessments of the problem mean some customers will have to accept worsening computer performance in the name of security, forcing them to add more servers to get back to where they were before applying the security updates. It also shows the challenge of patching such widespread hardware flaws.
Until now, Intel and AMD have not disclosed the number of chips affected by the security flaws yet. But on Tuesday AMD said it was aware of an issue with some older-generation processors following the installation of a Microsoft security update that was published over the weekend.