AMD hit by double class action suit over Spectre vulnerabilites

The Meltdown/Spectre vulnerability issues have taken the PC world by storm immediately after the beginning of 2018. Solutions have already been issued, be them from Microsoft or from processor manufacturers, but hackers still managed to profit from all the confusion, as exploits now come in the form of fake patches claiming to provide the necessary protection against the two vulnerabilities.

Intel seems to be affected by these problems the most, as all the vulnerabilities are inherent to each and every Core family of processors in existence (first Core CPUs were launched back in 2006). AMD, on the other hand, immediately stated that its Zen-based CPUs (Ryzen and Threadripper) are only partially affected. The Meltdown vulnerability does not affect AMD’s processors at all, but things get blurry as far as Spectre is concerned. There are two Spectre variants, and AMD said that its CPUs are only vulnerable to variant 1, while variant 2 had “near-zero risk of exploitation”. After a while, AMD reconsidered its statements by claiming it already issued “optional” CPU microcode updates for variant 2. This sudden change in statements makes up the bulk of the reason why the Rosen and Pomerantz law firms are suing AMD.

The two law firms represent the most important AMD investors that apparently were not informed about the vulnerabilities and the value of the AMD stock supposedly dropped amidst the vulnerability debacle. The reality is that the AMD stock took an insignificant hit immediately after AMD announced the BIOS microcode updates, but it recovered in no time. The real issue is the release of the BIOS updates for Spectre variant 2, when AMD claimed that this particular variant was not an issue.

AMD claims that these allegations are without merit and it is ready to fight the two law firms in court.