Intel discloses new variant on Spectre, Meltdown security flaws

Intel has disclosed a new variant of its widespread Spectre and Meltdown security flaws, introducing a new vulnerability to watch out for. 

Intel is calling the new strain "Variant 4," and it uses many of the same security vulnerabilities that the original flaws took advantage of -- though it uses a different method to extract sensitive information, according to the company.

Spectre and Meltdown, two major design flaws in processors revealed in January, have continued to haunt companies like Intel, Arm and AMD, who all make chips to help your gadgets run. The vulnerabilities would have let potential attackers read sensitive information on your CPU, even though it was supposed to be protected data. The flaws affected hundreds of millions of chips from the last two decades. While companies like Intel, Apple and Microsoft have made updates available to fix the issue, it's been hit with unexpected patching issues, sometimes causing computer issues. 

Intel is classifying Variant 4 as a medium risk, because many of the exploits it uses in web browsers has been fixed from the original set of patches, according to a blog post from the company. The new variant uses something called "Speculative Store Bypass," which would have your processor load sensitive data to potentially unsecure spaces.

The company said it hasn't seen this vulnerability used by hackers, and that it's releasing a complete fix for the flaws over the coming weeks. Intel's executive vice president of security, Leslie Culbertson, said in a blog post that it's made the update available for manufacturers and software vendors. 

She said they don't expect it to affect any computer's performances, an issue the original patches had.

This is a breaking news story, please continue to check for updates.

Updated at 2:11 p.m.: To add more details on the newly announced flaw.