Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said Monday the chip maker expects to issue updates to all of its processors released in the last five years before the end of January.

The announcement followed the disclosure of massive security vulnerabilities last week that affect Intel chips.

“For our processors, products, introduced in the past five years, Intel expects to issue updates for more than 90 percent of them within a week,” Krzanich told audiences in Las Vegas during his keynote address at industry expo CES. “And the remaining [updates will be available] by the end of January.”

Last week, industry blog The Register reported that a patch for the security flaw in Intel chips could impact their functioning.

Krzanich said that the “performance impact of these updates is highly workload dependent.” He added that he expects some to be affected more than others. “So we will continue working with the industry to minimize the impact on those workloads over time.”

Earlier, Krzanich informed employees about the creation of a new security group following the disclosure of the vulnerabilities.

That news was first reported by the Oregonian and a source familiar with the matter confirmed the change to CNBC.

Intel declined to comment on the matter.

Initially, Intel was quick to point out that the security vulnerabilities were not limited to its products, and might not have the biggest impact. “Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time,” the company said.

Then, a few days after the details of the so-called Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities — which Intel had known about for months — became public, the company emphasized that it had been busy issuing updates for affected processors.

With the formation of the security group, Intel is going further, suggesting the problems could require more work over time.

Patches to prevent exploits of the two vulnerabilities have already caused a few issues. One gaming company, Epic, released a chart showing clear spikes in chip utilization after servers it relies on for one game were patched. Some customers of cloud provider Amazon Web Services have reported issues on its online forums as well.

Source: Tech CNBC
Intel's CEO says the company will update its vulnerable chips by the end of January