Blatant Misinformation – The AMD Processor Virus

Few could have failed to notice recent press reports concerning the apparent discovery of a virus that was widely stated to attack AMD based Processors – specifically AMD’s 64-bit based Processors – as the internet has been buzzing with the news for a number of days. And, whilst many of the posts and forum entries I have read have admittedly been tinged with scepticism, in a surprising number of instances it would seem that posters have displayed a overt willingness to spread, and further hype, a wholly flawed news story that undoubtedly must have seen Intel’s management smirking wryly into their cappuccinos.

The virus concerned, named W64.Bounds, quite apart from being AMD specific, attacks 64-bit based Windows operating systems and appears to be an extension of the W32.Bounds virus that previously targeted 32-bit versions of the operating system. It is therefore a complete fallacy to state, or even imply, that this EXE based virus exploits any supposed AMD processor level weakness.

What I find incredulous is the fact that journalists in the main-stream media would appear have to conducted little research into the actualities of this virus before publishing stories aimed squarely at implying that the respective AMD processors were in some way uniquely vulnerable to this threat. One cannot help but wonder why AMD even became a focus unless, of course, (and this is pure conjecture) the initial reports that stirred up this swarm of misinformation were from sources with political points to score and share prices to think about.

The jury is out on that one.