Intel has posted about a new CPU security flaw like Spectre

A fourth CPU-based security exploit has been discovered and shared by Intel on its official website.

In a post on Intel's newsroom, the company's Leslie Culbertson described the discovery, named Variant 4, as similar to other Google Project Zero-discovered processor security flaws such as Spectre and Meltdown. Intel has distributed a beta version of the software fix to its original equipment manufacturers, and it expects said OEMs to release this fix in the form of "BIOS and software updates in the coming weeks."

The software-based fix does come with a caveat: performance hits in the 2 to 8 percent range were registered by benchmark tools "like SYSmark 2014 SE and SPEC integer rate" on both client- and server-based systems. Intel plans to release updated chips in the future that mitigate these vulnerabilities at the hardware level.