This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 22, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Tuesday said patches were on the way for recently revealed flaws in some of its chips that could allow hackers to take over computers.

AMD expressed confidence that chip vulnerabilities made public last week by Israeli-based security firm CTS Labs could be fixed with firmware patches and updated software that would not slow computers down.

The chip manufacturer downplayed the threat of hackers taking advantage of the flaws, saying it would require administrator-level access to computers.

“Any attacker gaining unauthorised administrative access would have a wide range of attacks at their disposal well beyond the exploits identified in this research,” AMD said in its first update on the situation since the flaws were made public.

CTS Labs published its research showing “multiple critical security vulnerabilities and exploitable manufacturer backdoors” in AMD chips.

The security firm itemised 13 flaws, saying they “have the potential to put organisations at significantly increased risk of cyberattacks”. — AFP