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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Intel informed Chinese companies [thehill.com], including Lenovo and Alibaba, of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws in its processors before the U.S. government found out from reading press reports:

Intel Corporation initially warned a handful of customers, including several Chinese technology firms, about security flaws within its processor chips, while at the same time not telling the U.S. government, The Wall Street Journal [wsj.com] reported Sunday.

Security experts told the newspaper that the decision could have allowed Chinese tech companies to flag the vulnerabilities to Beijing, giving the Chinese government opportunity to exploit them.

Jake Williams, head of the security company Rendition Infosec and former National Security Agency (NSA) employee, told the Journal that it is a "near certainty" the Chinese government knew about the flaws from the Intel correspondence with Chinese tech companies, as Beijing keeps tabs on such communications.

The Journal reported that Alibaba Group, a top selling Chinese cloud-computing services company, was among the firms notified of the flaw early on.

The NSA is more likely to spy on you than China.

Intel CEO sold shares on same day OEMs informed of bugs: report [itwire.com]

Also at TechCrunch [techcrunch.com] and Engadget [engadget.com].

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