Intel Downfall & AMD Inception Are The Latest CPU Vulnerabilities Affecting Thousands of PCs

wccftech.com:

Intel and AMD platforms reportedly face newly surfaced CPU vulnerabilities codenamed Downfall & Inception, impacting the security and performance of several PCs. We will go into each platform's vulnerabilities individually to give readers an idea of the extent of the problems.

It has been revealed today that Intel has discovered a new vulnerability given the name "Downfall, " also called GDS (Gather Data Sampling). While the nickname given sounds alarming, the exposure, thankfully, doesn't have detrimental impacts and is confined to particular workloads. The newly discovered GDS vulnerability specifically affects processors with AVX2 and AVX-512 instruction sets. Intel states that GDS doesn't affect the latest generation CPUs; Tiger Lake/ Ice Lake lineups face disruptions.

Before going into the crux of the matter, an understanding of AVX2 and AVX-512 instruction sets becomes necessary. These instructions sets are part of Intel's x86 architecture and enhance a processor's SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) capabilities. They are specifically helpful in workloads that involve heavy computational work, such as simulations and development. Hence, this proves that the "Downfall" vulnerability affects specific applications.

Coming back to the topic, the word "Downfall" was formulated by Google's researcher Daniel Moghimi. It is used to label vulnerability that reveals hardware registry to software; in simple terms, it leaks out internal contents, potentially leading to data theft.

Before you start worrying, Intel has acknowledged the issue and released a microcode. However, the company has also stated that the "microcode"  will affect workloads, especially HPC, where Intel has disclosed to its partners that there could be a