Security News > 2022 > January > Intel fails to get Spectre, Meltdown chip flaw class-action super-suit tossed out

The Register broke the Meltdown story on January 2, 2018, as Intel and those who confidentially reported the security vulnerability were preparing to disclose them.

To defend against Meltdown and Spectre, Intel and other affected vendors have had to add software and hardware mitigations that for some workloads make patched processors mildly to significantly slower.

Intel, as the largest x86 microprocessor maker, has been the most affected by the findings: its chips were vulnerable to both Meltdown and Spectre, whereas rivals like AMD were affected only by Spectre.

Judge Simon dismissed claims based on purchases up through August 2017 because Intel was unaware of the microarchitecture vulnerabilities up to that point.

"Based on plaintiffs' allegations, it is not clear that Intel had a countervailing business interest other than profit for delaying disclosure for as long as it did, for downplaying the negative effects of the mitigation, for suppressing the effects of the mitigation, and for continuing to embargo further security exploits that affect only Intel processors," the judge wrote in his order [PDF].

"We are pleased with the Court's decision, which found that the claims we allege show Intel 'took advantage of consumers' lack of knowledge such that the resulting unfairness was glaringly noticeable, flagrant, complete, and unmitigated,' said Christopher Seeger, an attorney with Seeger Weiss LLP, who is lead counsel for the plaintiffs, in an emailed statement."

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/01/28/intel_spectre_lawsuit/