Intel class action claims CPUs affected by Downfall vulnerability

Intel class action overview: 

• Who: Intel is facing a class action lawsuit from plaintiffs Darques Smith, Renee Waltrip, Brian Cameron, Elizabeth Cordova and Michael Worley over issues with the Intel processor’s functionality.
• Why: Intel’s processors are susceptible to a vulnerability called Downfall, which Intel has known about but has not fixed, the class action claims.
• Where: The Intel Downfall class action was filed in federal court in California.

Intel is facing a class action lawsuit claiming that its processors are susceptible to a vulnerability called Downfall and that the company has not taken proper measures to fix the issues.

Intel has known about the Downfall issues since at least 2018 and the only fix it has created is a patch that slows down processing at least 50%, the lawsuit claims. 

“Plaintiffs are left with defective CPUs that are either egregiously vulnerable to attacks or must be slowed down beyond recognition to ‘fix’ them,” the Intel Downfall class action claims. “At bottom, these are not the CPUs Plaintiffs and class members purchased. They perform quite differently and are worth far less. And for years, Intel has known that all this would eventually occur.”

Processors were set up with vulnerability that has been exploited, Intel class action says

Part of a computer processing system is that the processor speculatively executes instructions. When those instructions fail, the computer is supposed to discard them completely. But Intel processors leave traces that remain and can view system resources and information that are supposed to be held separately.

Over time, code has been made to attack that Intel vulnerability in the form of Spectre and Meltdown.

“These vulnerabilities had staggering consequences, and Intel scrambled to fix them, promising both firmware and hardware mitigations in its CPUs, particularly in its then-forthcoming 9th generation of CPUs,” the Intel lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit claims that billions of CPUs have now been sold with the known vulnerabilities. The plaintiffs are asking for restitution, buyback, recall or replacement and damages for the defective parts.

A federal judge in Oregon threw out a lawsuit last year alleging Intel Corp. knowingly sold defective microprocessors and delayed disclosing the issue to the public. 

Do you use an Intel processor? Let us know in the comments.

The plaintiffs are represented by Yavar Bathaee, Andrew C. Wolinsky, Brian J. Dunne and Edward M. Grauman of Bathaee Dunne LLP. 

The Intel class action lawsuit is Smith, et al. v. Intel Corp., Case No. 5:23-cv-5761, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division.

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