China spy agency warns of growing cybersecurity threats amid call for Intel review

Ministry of State Security alert comes after Intel chips are singled out for ‘frequent vulnerabilities, high failure rates’

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Intel Corporation has pushed back against Beijing’s claims that its products pose risks to state security. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:00pm, 17 Oct 2024

China’s top spy agency has warned of state security threats following a Chinese cybersecurity group’s call for a review of Intel products sold on the mainland.

“Cybersecurity threats and risks are becoming more pronounced, permeating various fields such as politics, economics, culture, society, ecology and national defence,” the Ministry of State Security (MSS) said in an article posted on its official WeChat account on Thursday, as it cautioned over increasingly intense struggles for dominance and control over cyberspace development.

The article was published a day after the Cyber Security Association of China (CSAC) called for an extensive evaluation of Intel’s systems, alleging that the US semiconductor giant’s chips posed a threat of “frequent vulnerabilities and high failure rates”.

In a WeChat post on Wednesday, the CSAC said Intel’s central processing units (CPUs) had exhibited multiple vulnerabilities, including issues that have led to video game crashes.

The association singled out several Intel chip security vulnerabilities in games such as GhostRace, NativeBHI and Downfall, which it said allowed attackers to access sensitive information through so-called speculative execution flaws.

The CSAC has also criticised Intel for slow responses to prior security breach complaints, and for potentially enabling a secret back door that could be exploited to launch cyberattacks or access information without user consent.