The reasonable expectation would be that Intel fixes one (or both) of the bugs
- In newer CPU's. There should be mitigations against these attacks. That would probably seriously hurt intel by delaying their future processor launches
- In Older/existing CPU's through microcode updates. Bar literally making "fixed" versions of every Intel CPU in the last 10~ years. This is the only way to resolve the issue on existing hardware
Instead of doing that. Intel wants to avoid the much-reported "30% performance hit" by simply saying "Well if you want this FEATURE, you can enable it in your OS!"
Intel is trying to downplay a massive security vulnerability in their hardware as something that OS vendors can just let users opt in/out of
- In newer CPU's. There should be mitigations against these attacks. That would probably seriously hurt intel by delaying their future processor launches
- In Older/existing CPU's through microcode updates. Bar literally making "fixed" versions of every Intel CPU in the last 10~ years. This is the only way to resolve the issue on existing hardware
Instead of doing that. Intel wants to avoid the much-reported "30% performance hit" by simply saying "Well if you want this FEATURE, you can enable it in your OS!"
Intel is trying to downplay a massive security vulnerability in their hardware as something that OS vendors can just let users opt in/out of