Edition of the Register published a report according to which, the serious shortcomings of the architecture of processors of Intel have a negative impact on the performance of all operating systems, including macOS.
According to the document, all Intel processors released in the last decade, contain a fundamental error. This allows user programs to recognize the contents of the protected memory of the kernel. Because of this, attackers can gain read access to kernel memory segment containing passwords, sign-in keys, the files cached from disk and other important data.
The patch covering the hole, can not be called efficient. He isolates the kernel address space, so the contents of one partition becomes not available to a running process. However, this slows down the whole system on average 5-30%. The performance degradation is due to the fact that the processor must reset the cached data and to reload the information from memory.
Currently, Microsoft and Linux looking for ways to solve problems. The bug also affects Mac computers equipped with Intel processors. However, the corrective action may be required to repair the firmware on the operating system level.
A more efficient solution for Windows could be presented in mid-January, 2018. Patch for Linux has already appeared in the network. On the timing of release of fixes for macOS is not reported.
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