Homeland Security Warns Businesses About Intel Chip Vulnerability

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is urging U.S. businesses to act on an alert issued by chip maker Intel regarding security flaws in its computer chips.

According to a report in Reuters, the government agency warned businesses a day after Intel disclosed it has found security weaknesses in remote management software. The feature comes with eight semiconductors used in corporate computers sold by Dell Technologies, Lenovo, HP, Hewlett Packard Enterprises Co. and other manufacturers.

Security experts said it was unclear how hard it would be for hackers to exploit the security weakness, but they did express concerns about the warning since Intel’s chips are used by multiple companies around the globe.

“These vulnerabilities affect essentially every business computer and server with an Intel processor released in the last two years,” said Jay Little, a security engineer with cyber consulting firm Trail of Bits, in an interview with Reuters.

For its part, Intel has said it is not aware of any exploitation of the vulnerability so far.

In addition to advising computer users to look over the warnings from Intel, the DHS also wants them to contact computer makers to get updates and advice on how to prevent their systems from being exploited. Agnes Kwan, a spokeswoman for Intel, said the company has issued software patches to fix the issue to all of the major computer makers. It is up to those manufacturers to provide the patches to customers, she explained.

Intel is not the only high-profile firm to warn about security issues in recent days. Ride-hailing company Uber revealed it was the subject of a massive hack last year which the company resolved by paying its hackers $100,000 to keep quiet. That breach compromised the driver’s licenses of approximately 600,000 Uber drivers. All told, more than 57 million people were potentially impacted.